China Set to Announce 10 New COVID Measures on December 7

(CTN News) – According to two individuals with knowledge of the situation who spoke to Reuters, China may release 10 more COVID-19 easing measures as early as Wednesday, adding to the 20 announced in November that sparked a wave of easing moves throughout the country.

China’s economy has been pummelling for three years by zero-tolerance policies, including border closures and regular lockdowns. Last month saw the largest mainland demonstration of public unhappiness since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012.

On Monday, sources who spoke anonymously stated that the disease’s management might be reduced as soon as January to the less stringent Category B of infectious diseases from the present top-level Category A.

As the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus fell last week, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said that China was in “a new scenario,” becoming the first senior official to officially admit the decline in the new variant’s capacity to spread illness.

Since then, several large cities have begun discontinuing widespread lockdowns, scaling down routine PCR testing, and stopping checking for negative test results in public areas like parks and subway stations.

To strengthen COVID management and strike a better balance between epidemic prevention and shoring up the economy, the national health authority had previously announced several additional measures on Nov. 11.

According to two individuals who spoke to Reuters last week, China would permit home quarantine for some people who test positive as one of the additional steps that will be published.

Earlier this year, when whole villages were sealed down, sometimes for weeks, following just one positive case, it would represent a significant shift in tactics.

Last month, simpler quarantine regulations just called for the shutdown of impacted premises.

Since January 2020, COVID-19 has been handled in China using Category A procedures and categorized as a Category B infectious illness.

This gives local authorities the authority to place patients and their close contacts in quarantine and to shut down whole areas.

Diseases like the bubonic plague and cholera go under Category A, SARS, AIDS, and anthrax are grouped under Category B, while influenza, leprosy, and mumps are categorized under Category C.

But in China, more than 95% of cases are minor and asymptomatic, with few fatalities. According to an anonymous expert cited by the official media source Yicai on Sunday, adhering to the Category A method in such situations is inconsistent with science.

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