The government announced on Monday the mandatory digital “itinerary card” which has been a key tool in the fight against COVID-19 for two and a half years would be switched off immediately.
China has abolished a controversial tracking application which has been used to monitor citizens’ movements during the pandemic, in the latest sign of Beijing’s relaxation of some of the world’s most stringent pandemic controls.
The system’s elimination comes after three years of lockdowns, travel restrictions and quarantines on those moving between provinces and cities, mandated testing, and requirements that a clean bill of health be shown to access public areas.
Doctors and nurses in at least one Beijing hospital have been asked to keep reporting for duty even if they’ve caught COVID-19, if their symptoms are mild, said a medical worker, while healthcare staff in another hospital in the city’s downtown area have been summoned back to work from holiday, according to another.
Most Chinese people seek care from public hospitals even for minor ailments, as their expenses will be reimbursed with state medical insurance that covers over 95 per cent of the 1.4 billion population. Meanwhile, urban elites with private insurance are more likely to go to private hospitals for relatively limited services.
Chinese airlines and travel-related stocks rose on Monday even as the broader benchmarks drop, though investors are primed for market upheaval in 2023 as the country charts its reopening path.
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