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China’s easing of Covid tracking rules to free up stretched resources in Guangdong: official
- Local authorities no longer have to investigate close contacts of close contacts
- But zero-Covid still in place and officials worry they will be held responsible for any rise in cases
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China’s decision to relax its Covid-19 restrictions is a chance for Guangdong to refocus some of its stretched resources on the most critical cases as the southern province tries to contain its latest major outbreak, according to health officials.
But some officials also said they were worried that they would still be held responsible if the outbreak continued to escalate after the relaxation.
Coronavirus cases are on the rise on the mainland, with the National Health Commission reporting 11,950 new cases on Saturday, of which 10,446 were asymptomatic. The total was 1,221 higher than a day earlier and the highest since late April.
The fresh peak came just a day after Beijing unveiled an easing in some Covid-19 measures, including no longer requiring local governments to track “secondary” close contacts – close contacts of close contacts of infected people.
The changes are designed to reduce the economic and social impact of the stringent zero-Covid policy which has been a drag on the world’s second-largest economy, disrupting people and goods flow, industrial activity and frustrating residents and foreign investors with lockdowns, quarantines, frequent testing and regular travel interruptions.
The increasingly transmissible new variants have also made it difficult to continue with the containment strategy, though China said it would continue to hold on to the zero-Covid policy.
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