A month ago, the northern Chinese city Shijiazhuang was in panic. But the mood changed after the government announced Wednesday the biggest nationwide relaxation of covid restrictions since the start of the pandemic.
In November, Chinese epidemiologists led by Zhuo Jiatong, head of the Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Guangxi region, estimated that, while strict containment measures had up until that point saved 6 million lives,if the country experiences the kind of devastating wave of infections that struck Hong Kong earlier this yearHospital capacity is also an issue.
“For them, keeping lockdowns and pursuing zero covid now harmed their political survival while letting cases rise becomes less risky since case numbers were increasing across the country,” Zhu said. Fearing the expected wave of infections, residents have ignored government warnings against hoarding and stocked up on antivirals, traditional Chinese medicine and antigen test kits, causing many pharmacies to run out. “It’s useless to queue up,” said Wang. “It’s as crazy as trying to buy food before the city was sealed off.”
Yet responsibility is for the first time being handed to individuals to manage their own health, a departure from when medicine and testing procedures were almost entirely organized by the state. At-home quarantine cases should monitor their own health and drive themselves to the hospital if symptoms worsen, the National Health Commission said on Thursday. At-home antigen tests kits are now being promoted instead of instead of the centralized system of PCR tests.
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