Sharjah24 - Reuters: China on Friday eased some of its draconian COVID rules, including shortening quarantines by two days for close contacts of infected people and for inbound travellers, and removing a penalty for airlines for bringing in too many cases.
The loosening of the rules, which came a day after China's new Politburo Standing Committee discussed COVID during a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, cheered markets, with Shanghai's benchmark CSI 300 .CSI300 jumping 3% and the yuan currency extending gains to a one-month high.
Under the new rules, centralised quarantine times for close contacts and travellers from abroad were shortened from seven days to five days. The requirement for three further days in home isolation after centralised quarantine remains.
China will also stop trying to identify "secondary" contacts - a major annoyance for residents of cities who find themselves caught up in sweeping contact-tracing efforts when a case is found - while still identifying close contacts.
"Optimising and adjusting prevention and control measures is not relaxing prevention and control, let alone opening up and 'laying flat', but to adapt to the new situation of epidemic prevention and control and the new characteristics of COVID-19 mutation," the National Health Commission (NHC) said.
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