China enters new stage in COVID-19 response

BEIJING, Dec. 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on China's COVID-19 response:

Changes are taking place to China's COVID-19 response.

Now, efforts are being accelerated across the country to fully reopen the economy, and people are generally no longer required to present their nucleic acid test results when entering workplaces and public spaces or travelling to other regions. Meanwhile, many local governments have arranged charter planes to send business delegations overseas in pursuit of export orders, attracting widespread attention at home and abroad.

Since the beginning of this year, China has optimized its COVID-19 response several times, including shortening quarantine periods, canceling the "circuit breaker" mechanism for inbound flights, ending mass lockdowns and testing, and allowing home quarantine for those infected. With these steps, China has put more emphasis on protecting vulnerable groups such as the elderly and preventing serious cases and deaths. These moves indicate that the country has entered a new stage of coordinating socioeconomic development and epidemic control.

In this regard, some people comment that many countries had long relaxed their COVID-19 restrictions, and China, after three years of battling, finally had to abandon its stringent anti-virus controls in the face of the highly transmissible omicron variant.

It's important to mention that China's medical resources remain insufficient for its 1.4 billion population.

At the beginning of 2020, China went all out to contain the spread of the coronavirus through large-scale quarantine measures. In 2021, the country emphasized contact tracing and fought the delta variant by rapidly identifying those infected and figuring out the transmission chain, among other steps. And now in 2022 it is actively optimizing its response to match the features of the omicron variant. Over the past three years, the CPC and the Chinese government have been combating the virus while conducting research, and China's COVID-19 response has been enhanced.

We can also see that over the past three years, Chinese scientists have been working tirelessly, and developed a variety of vaccines. Now, over 90% of China is fully vaccinated and progress has also been made in the research and production of traditional Chinese medicines and other drugs to battle the disease.

What's more, over the past three years, whenever a major outbreak occurred, people from all walks of life, including community workers, delivery drivers and sanitation workers, stood by their posts, united and devoted. Millions of ordinary people have cooperated with the country's epidemic policies, wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and getting more exercise. The public's knowledge of the virus and ability to cope with it have both improved.

Therefore, as the pathogenicity of the omicron variant weakens, China is optimizing its COVID-19 response. These adjustments are based entirely on the success of the prevention and control policies over the past three years. These refinements also reflect the will of the vast majority of the Chinese people.

Over the past three years, China's response to COVID-19 has protected people's lives to the greatest extent. We shouldn't deny our previous efforts just because of the current policy shift, just as we wouldn't say that the first four buns were unnecessary because we were full after eating the fifth one. We also have every reason to believe that the resilient Chinese people and China's complete industrial chain will be a strong guarantee for the country to better balance economic development and epidemic control and emerge from COVID-19 as soon as possible.

China Mosaic
http://chinamosaic.china.com.cn/index.htm
China enters new stage in COVID-19 response
http://www.china.org.cn/video/2022-12/29/content_85032519.htm

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