BEIJING: 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 test result to use public transport and enter outdoor venues such as parks and tourist attractions, authorities said in a WeChat post on Sunday.
The city of more than 23 million was sealed off for months this year, weighing heavily on domestic economic activity.
Shanghai follows multiple cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Chengdu, which all cancelled the testing requirement for public transport on Saturday.
Beijing’s local authorities also abandoned on Saturday real-name registration that had been required to buy cold and fever medicine.
Chinese health authorities last month released a list of measures designed to "optimise" zero-COVID and minimise its socio-economic impact, but local enforcement of the measures has varied widely.
The northeastern city of Jinzhou said Thursday it would continue to impose lockdowns because "it would be a shame to not achieve zero-COVID when we are able to", before backtracking the next day after public outcry.
Officials in the eastern city of Jinan said Sunday that residents would still need to scan a health code and have a recent negative test result to access public toilets.
Protests erupted over the past week in residential compounds in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Guangzhou over what residents deemed were excessive measures.
US-South Korean joint military exercises infuriate Pyongyang, which views them as rehearsals for an invasion and has...
Dogged by scandal in his later years, George Pell was the highest-ranking Catholic to be imprisoned for child sexual...
Beijing's growing assertiveness on Taiwan and its building of bases in disputed South China Sea have given fresh...
Adani's empire has lost more than $100 billion following explosive allegations of accounting fraud last week by US...
General Atomic Aeronautical Systems says it had been urging Washington for months to provide Ukraine its powerful Grey...
US central bank announces quarter-point hike to benchmark lending rate, taking the rate to a target range of...