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.
Major adjustments have been made to China's COVID-19 control policies. Below are some of the key changes, to help you keep up to date.
A plan for the tiered diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients has been put into place in Zhejiang, according to a top expert from the province on Monday.
Following many places across the country, including neighboring Shanghai, local authorities in several cities in East China's Zhejiang Province announced on Sunday that negative nucleic acid testing results and green health codes are no longer required for taking public transportation and entering public venues since Monday.
China will cut COVID-19 quarantine period for incoming travelers from 10 to 8 days, cancel the circuit breaker for inbound flights and no longer determine secondary close contacts of confirmed cases, health authorities said on Friday.