China has announced wide-ranging relaxations to President Xi Jinping’s contentious zero-COVID restrictions, including for the first time home quarantine, as further evidence emerged of the economic damage from the pandemic controls, reports the Financial Times.
The new measures, outlined on Wednesday by the State Council, China’s cabinet, were foreshadowed by a meeting of the Chinese Communist party’s politburo that emphasised the importance of stabilising the economy rather than the battle against COVID-19.
They include the first explicit endorsement from the central government of isolating asymptomatic or mild coronavirus cases at home rather than at hospitals or centralised quarantine facilities. Some local governments had experimented with similar measures in recent days.