'One extreme to the other': Chinese megacity Chongqing says people with Covid can go to work - CNN

Hong Kong CNN  — 

The sprawling Chinese metropolis of Chongqing announced Sunday that nationalist assemblage employees investigating affirmative for Covid-19 tin spell to enactment “as normal,” a singular turnaround for a metropolis that lone weeks agone had been successful the throes of a wide lockdown.

The determination comes arsenic China continues to rapidly unravel its once-stringent zero-Covid policy, with section governments crossed the federation relaxing costly rules astir testing, quarantine and different pandemic policies amid a wide economical downturn.

“Asymptomatic and mildly sick employees of the (Communist Party) and authorities organizations astatine each levels, enterprises and institutions tin spell to enactment usually aft taking protective measures arsenic indispensable for their wellness presumption and occupation requirements,” the Chongqing pandemic effect bureau said successful a statement published connected the municipal government’s website.

It added that authorities agencies would nary longer cheque employees – including police, nationalist schoolhouse teachers and different workers – for regular antagonistic Covid tests. Instead, authorities volition displacement the absorption of enactment from preventing corruption to wellness extortion and preventing terrible disease, it said.

The abrupt U-turn is particularly stunning successful Chongqing, 1 of China’s largest cities, with 32 cardinal residents and yearly GDP of $400 billion.

Jerry Cheng, who works astatine a state-owned operation institution successful the metropolis and is presently Covid positive, voiced concerns astir the announcement.

“I won’t spell unless they telephone my name,” helium told CNN. “It’s decidedly not a bully happening to person a radical of infected radical moving together,” helium said, adding the caller argumentation was to support the section economy.

Cheng’s anxiousness was reflected connected Weibo, China’s mentation of Twitter, connected Monday arsenic Chongqing residents reacted to the announcement.

“Why bash you request to spell and infect steadfast people?” work 1 apical comment. Another idiosyncratic wrote: “This is going from 1 utmost to the other.”

Chongqing, a hub for manufacture and agriculture, became a Covid hotspot past month. More than a cardinal residents were told not to permission the metropolis unless perfectly necessary, and respective rounds of regular wide investigating were rolled out.

When China’s Vice Premier Sun Chunlan visited Chongqing connected November 22, she urged section authorities to instrumentality “swift and decisive measures” to incorporate the outbreak by identifying affirmative cases and their adjacent contacts, according to state-run outlet Global Times.

But by then, immoderate residents were losing patience. Three years of zero-Covid had taken its toll connected the economy, disrupting regular beingness and people’s livelihoods.

Photos from Chongqing had gone viral online successful August, showing immense crowds lasting nether the prima for hours during a grounds vigor question arsenic they waited for mandatory Covid tests. In the background, plumes of fume from wildfires roseate supra the skyline.

Reflecting the increasing frustration, 1 Chongqing nonmigratory delivered a searing code successful precocious November criticizing the lockdown of his residential compound, shouting to a cheering crowd: “Without freedom, I would alternatively die!”

Nationwide protests against the zero-Covid argumentation – and successful immoderate cases, against the cardinal enactment itself – broke retired conscionable days later, marking the astir important challenge to the Communist Party and Chinese person Xi Jinping successful decades.

The country’s accelerated rollback of Covid restrictions came soon after. And portion the easing of rules, specified arsenic allowing Covid patients to isolate astatine location alternatively of being taken to a authorities quarantine center, is simply a long-awaited alleviation for many, skyrocketing cases person besides prompted wide anxiousness among a colonisation that had been mostly shielded from the microorganism since 2020.

According to CNN calculations based connected a study from Hong Kong researchers released past week, the country’s Covid decease toll could scope astir 1 cardinal implicit the people of its reopening.