The country is facing a \u0027new reality\u0027 as the virus now poses a lesser threat, says the head of China\u0027s coronavirus response efforts.
After protests against zero COVID spread to more than a dozen metropolises, some of China’s largest cities this week started lifting lockdowns, canceling mass testing and allowing some close contacts to quarantine at home. But measures that have long been phased out elsewhere in the world, such as testing requirements to access public entertainments spaces, remained in the southern economic hub of Guangzhou.
Some local leaders in China’s rust-belt regions have been more reluctant to loosen controls, in part because zero COVID was linked with loyalty to President Xi Jinping, who has tried to assert near-absolute control as he enters an unprecedented third term as China’s top leader. Top Chinese officials have not directly acknowledged the rallies, which are the largest non-state-sanctioned demonstrations since the Tiananmen protests of 1989. But they have made the unsupported accusation that hostile foreign forces were meddling with social order. A senior health official also said Tuesday that the public had no issue with zero COVID, but were unhappy about how local governments implemented the policy.
Search engines and other internet companies were also told to block access to virtual private networks , according to a memo purportedly from China’s internet regulator that circulated online. The Washington Post could not immediately authenticate the memo, but the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that tech companies had been ordered to expand their censorship teams and clamp down on discussion of the demonstrations and the Xinjiang fire.
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