Chinese leadership hails 'decisive victory' over pandemic in ending zero-Covid policy
Chinese leaders have hailed a "decisive victory" over the Covid pandemic and called the country's successful exit from zero-Covid policy a "miracle".
The conclusion was made public at a Politburo Standing Committee meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday. The Standing Committee is the top decision-making body of the Communist Party and Xi is the party's general secretary.
"Since November 2022, we have continued fine-tuning our pandemic control policy and achieved a smooth change of course [in Covid control] in a relatively short period of time," CCTV quoted an official read-out of the meeting as saying.
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"Hence, more than 200 million people have been diagnosed and treated [for Covid] and nearly 800,000 severe patients received effective treatment, and our fatality rate was the lowest in the world."
"[We have] scored an important and decisive victory in our prevention and control of the pandemic, and created a miracle in human history that a major populous country has successfully overcome a spreading pandemic," the read-out said, adding that the results had proven the leadership's decision was "totally correct" and had won the "recognition of the people".
China's sudden exit from its zero-Covid policy - which mandated tough lockdowns, strict quarantine and mass testings to stamp out the spread of the virus - was controversial with critics and Covid victims who contended that the authorities were ill-prepared and the exit was poorly executed.
The read-out of Thursday's meeting also said that the current situation was improving but called on local authorities to remain vigilant as the virus mutates and spreads globally.
"All regions and departments must thoroughly summarise the experience and practices of the past three years and recent months in particular, and resolutely consolidate the hard-won major achievements," it said.
Recently, outbreaks have subsided in China with a significant drop in infections, hospital admissions, and deaths.
Data released by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention last week showed that a total of 37,611 people were infected with Covid-19 and being treated in hospitals in the seven-day period ending February 9, including 424 in critical condition. A total of 912 Covid-related deaths were recorded during the period.
The Chinese mainland reported more than 80,000 Covid-19-related deaths at hospitals from December 8 to February 9, according to data previously released by the centre.
After China's abrupt U-turn and subsequent reopening in early January, the world has been on alert for a sharp increase of infections in the country.
Some nations have imposed new entry restrictions for Chinese travellers, citing a lack of transparency in China's data and sharp increases of infection in the country.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised China's data-sharing in a meeting with Chinese officials in January, but also called on Beijing to provide more information about the virus sequences.
While the Chinese CDC earlier reported that Omicron sublineages BA.5.2 and BF.7 are currently circulating, WHO said in a statement on January 14 that it continued to ask that further sequences be shared with open access databases for deeper phylogenetic analyses.
The read-out from Thursday's meeting also said that control measures like monitoring and early warning need to be strengthened, and vaccination of the elderly people would be stepped up in coming months.
Additionally, it called for reinforcing the country's health and medical supplies systems.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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