BEIJING: China appears likely to relax some of its strict zero Covid rules after rare protests in several cities last weekend called for an end to strict Covid curbs, a senior Chinese official s comments and reports indicated on Thursday.Vice premier Sun Chunlan, the senior most Chinese official overseeing Covid control strategies, said the country s battle against Covid 19 requires a new approach as the Omicron variant becomes less pathogenic, more people get vaccinated and experience is gained in controlling the virus, according to official news agency, Xinhua.She made the comments during a meeting of national health officials on Wednesday, the Xinhua report said.Sun s remarks come against the backdrop of the worst ongoing country wide Covid outbreak, which has hit some of the country s largest cities including Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing.The country wide daily caseload has stayed above the 30,000 mark for nearly a week now.Sun is the highest official in charge of Covid controls to acknowledge that the Omicron variant is less virulent, a significant change in the official position, suggesting a more flexible set of restrictions could be implemented in the coming days.Sun was quoted by Xinhua as saying that optimisation of Covid 19 control rules would continue.
With the people at the centre, prevention and control work must steadily progress, policies continue to be optimised in small steps but without stopping, she said. We believe Sun s speech, in addition to the notable easing of Covid control measures in Guangzhou yesterday, sends yet another strong signal that the zero Covid policy will end within the next few months, CNBC quoted brokerage Nomura s Chief China Economist Ting Lu and a team, as saying in a report on Thursday.Despite reporting thousands of daily infections, some cities have eased a few of their stringent zero Covid requirements, including testing and negative Covid tests to enter public spaces.