China scraps some of its most controversial Covid rules, in significant step toward reopening

[dalton99a]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/china/china-covid-restrictions-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html

China scraps some of its most controversial Covid rules, in significant step toward reopening
By Jessie Yeung and CNN's Beijing bureau
Published 1:30 AM EST, Wed December 7, 2022

China announced sweeping changes to its national pandemic response on Wednesday, the clearest and most significant sign yet that the country is moving away from its strict zero-Covid approach.

In a statement reported by state broadcaster CCTV, China’s State Council unveiled 10 new guidelines that loosen some restrictions – most notably, allowing home quarantine and largely scrapping the health QR code that has been mandatory for entering most public places.

Asymptomatic Covid patients or those with mild symptoms will also be allowed to quarantine at home instead of being taken to a government facility.

Local governments had already taken steps this week that indicated a possible change in direction – including some major cities loosening requirements on Covid testing.

But this is the first official change in Covid policy on a national level – a notable turnaround by the central government, which for the past three years insisted that the pandemic is a war only winnable by stamping out outbreaks wherever they occur, and controlling virus spread through unwavering restrictions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This will improve the supply chain situation

[luv2fly]

1. Perhaps, but the next few months don't look good

The vaccine they've used is less than stellar, and I read natural immunity isn't so hot there either as a consequence of their zero-covid isolation policy. They face a bleak winter.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/06/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-crisis-intl-hnk-mic/index.html

From the article:

As restrictions are relaxed, and the virus spreads across the country, China is “going to have to go through a period of pain in terms of illness, serious illness, deaths and stress on the health care system” as was seen elsewhere in the world earlier in the pandemic, he added.

[Dorian Gray]

3. They've had two years

to get the situation in order.

[RockRaven]

2. They're gonna have a lot of COVID deaths soon... Whether they acknowledge as much or not.

Their zero COVID policy was unsustainable in the absence of the holy grail of sterilizing immunity from a vaccine. A loosening of COVID rules was always inevitable, some day. They didn't use the limited time their totalitarian state bought them to the best effect -- they eschewed better vaccines and emphasizing vaccinating the elderly with them.

The consequences of loosening their draconian controls is obvious, predictable, inevitable. But like we saw here in the US, when the masses cannot or will not tolerate the infection control measures, the infections will run amok. And people will die.

So ends the bullshit propaganda of the CCP and state media who have been crowing for two years how their system and society is superior to those idiot decadent western capitalists who are immolating themselves with disease through lack of similar discipline or virtue or intellect. It is sadly their turn now.

[Dorian Gray]

4. This is it.....

exactly.

They wasted their opportunity. They drove their population to the point of maximum frustration. Their draconian measures weren't sustainable, and the population will suffer more because they didn't use the time wisely.

If they had used some of that control to VACCINATE the elderly population, they'd be in a much less precarious position right now.

[uponit7771]

5. +1,

[tanyev]

6. Presumably China can mandate masks for as long as they want.

That should help. What they really need to do is bring in better vaccines.

[MichMan]

7. Unlike when we had mask mandates, I bet they actually enforce them

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Does that mean the MAGAts will move to China now?

One can hope.