During a news briefing held on Saturday, some medical experts answered frequently asked questions about respiratory illnesses during winter and better explained the importance of getting vaccinated and adhering to a healthy lifestyle.
Health commission stresses improved monitoring as respiratory illnesses spread
Starting from April 29, airlines will no longer check COVID test reports of inbound passengers taken before boarding, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Tuesday.
The guidelines from the joint COVID-19 prevention and control mechanism of the State Council aim to clarify situations and circumstances where people should, can choose to, or may choose not to wear face masks.
The National Health Commission announced late Monday that it will reclassify the novel coronavirus, changing it from "novel coronavirus pneumonia" to "novel coronavirus infection".
China will manage COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases, in a major shift of its epidemic response policies.
After three years of battling COVID-19, experts said China is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as it continues to optimize measures against the epidemic. People with mild symptoms and asymptomatic cases can now elect to quarantine at home instead of at centralized quarantine facilities.
Chinese experts have recently stated that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has a lower chance of causing severe illness and death compared with the flu, hence China should continue to optimize its epidemic control policies to protect the vulnerable population.