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Beijing, China (AFP) People with Covid-19 symptoms in one of China’s largest cities can now go to work “as normal”, state media reported Monday, a dramatic reversal in a country where a single case could previously send thousands into lockdown. The world’s most populous nation is unwinding years of hardline coronavirus policy, with Covid spreading rapidly in the wake of the official end of mass lockdowns, testing and quarantines. And with authorities admitting the […]
Beijing, China (AFP) by Laurie CHEN Workers at Beijing crematoriums said Friday they are overwhelmed as China faces a surge in Covid cases that authorities warn could hit its underdeveloped rural hinterland during upcoming public holidays. Covid-19 is spreading rapidly across China after three years of strict containment measures ended last week, with health authorities now admitting the true scale of the outbreak is “impossible” to track. China’s top Covid response body on Friday […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — The true scale of Covid-19 infections in China is now “impossible” to track, the country’s top health body said Wednesday, as officials warned of a rapid spread in Beijing after the country abruptly dropped its zero-tolerance policy. China last week loosened restrictions for mass testing and quarantine after nearly three years of attempting to stamp out the virus, prompting officially reported infections to fall quickly from the all-time highs recorded last […]
San Francisco, United States (AFP) Elon Musk on Sunday targeted America’s outgoing top infectious disease official and key advisor of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, in a viral tweet that sparked backlash. “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” the billionaire Twitter CEO said, alluding to the practice of indicating gender pronouns after one’s name as well as the right-wing campaign to charge Fauci with crimes related to his involvement in US Covid […]
Beijing, China (AFP) by Jing Xuan TENG / Laurie CHEN Covid cases are surging in the Chinese capital, officials said Monday, as the country navigates a rapid turn away from its zero-tolerance coronavirus strategy. Just a few days after China began loosening restrictions, Beijing authorities said more than 22,000 patients had visited hospitals across the city in the previous day — 16 times the number a week ago. “The current trend of the rapid spread […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China said Monday it would retire an app used to track Covid-19 contacts, a milestone in the country’s rapid turn away from its zero-tolerance coronavirus strategy. The state-run “Communications Itinerary Card”, which tracks whether someone has been to a high-risk area based on their phone signal, will go offline at 12 am Tuesday, according to an official WeChat post, after more than two years in operation. The “Itinerary Card” was a […]
Beijing, China (AFP) China announced Wednesday a nationwide loosening of its hardline Covid restrictions that had hammered the world’s second biggest economy and ignited rare protests against the ruling Communist Party. The new rules are a major relaxation of President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-Covid policy, three years into the pandemic and long after the rest of the world had largely learnt to live with the virus. However, with vaccination rates remaining low among China’s elderly […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Businesses reopened and testing requirements were relaxed in Beijing and other Chinese cities on Monday as the country tentatively eases out of a strict zero-Covid policy that sparked nationwide protests. Local authorities across China have begun a slow rollback of the restrictions that have governed daily life for years, encouraged by the central government’s orders for a new approach to fighting the coronavirus. In the capital Beijing, where many businesses have […]
Beijing, China (AFP) Authorities in China’s financial hub of Shanghai will from Monday scrap some testing requirements in the country’s latest relaxing of its strict zero-Covid policy following nationwide protests unseen in decades. Multiple cities have started to roll back some restrictions after public resentment at harsh and prolonged containment measures reached a boiling point last weekend, when spontaneous protests broke out in multiple Chinese cities. Shanghai residents will no longer need a 48-hour negative […]
Bruxelles, Belgium (AFP) China’s President Xi Jinping suggested in talks with EU chief Charles Michel that the spread of the less lethal Omicron strain of Covid-19 may allow Beijing to ease lockdown rules, European officials said Friday. Michel met the Chinese leader in Beijing on Thursday. According to an account of the meeting from a senior European official, Xi told Michel that Chinese “people were frustrated” after three years of the coronavirus epidemic. Anger […]
by Matthew Walsh, with Jing Xuan Teng in Beijing Agence France-Presse SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — China’s censors were working Monday to extinguish signs of rare, social media-driven protests that flared across major cities over the weekend calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns. Sunday saw people take to the streets in several major cities across China to call for an end to lockdowns and greater political freedoms, in a wave of nationwide […]
Beijing, China (AFP) by Laurie CHEN One by one Beijingers braved the cold Sunday night after word of a rally spread on social media — a RALLYfor the victims of a deadly fire as well as a protest against China’s harsh Covid-19 restrictions. Within hours, hundreds had gathered on the banks of Liangma river in near freezing temperatures, an AFP journalist at the scene saw, many holding blank white papers — a symbolic protest against […]
