As China is the major growth engine for economic development of the Asia-Pacific and the wider world, its optimized COVID-19 strategy has injected fresh impetus into the global economic recovery. China has played an indispensable role in the global fight against the pandemic and recovery of the world economy.
The resumption of work and production in China has played a vital role in providing other countries with critical supplies in fighting COVID-19 and their subsequent efforts to achieve economic recovery.
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.
China has renamed the Chinese term for COVID-19 from “novel coronavirus pneumonia” to “novel coronavirus infection,” said a statement released by the National Health Commission on Monday.
Starting from January 8, 2023, China will downgrade management of the disease from Class A to Class B in accordance with the country’s law on prevention and treatment of infectious disease, and remove it from quarantinable infectious disease management carried out in accordance with the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law of the People’s Republic of China.
Currently, COVID-19 is classified as a Class-B infectious disease but subject to the preventive and control measures for a Class-A infectious disease in China.
At present, three classes (Class A, Class B and Class C) of notifiable infectious diseases in 40 categories are listed in China, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC).
Plague and cholera are listed as Class A infectious diseases. SARS, AIDS and tuberculosis are among the Class B infectious diseases. Class C infectious diseases include influenza, mumps, etc.
Basic conditions have been in place to support such an adjustment, said a document released by the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19 the same day, citing the latest virus mutation, the development of the epidemic and the country’s epidemic response basis.
Authorities will drop quarantine measures against people infected with novel coronavirus and stop identifying close contacts or designating high- and low-risk areas, said the document.
Southeast Asian experience showed that travel restrictions do not work because the virus is already within the country. It’s unfair to restrict travellers from China. We need to make decisions based on facts and science, said Chheang Vannarith.
A Danish expert said the requirement is illogical. “It’s difficult to see what relevance (this requirement) would have,” Christian Wejse, senior physician and professor of global medicine at Aarhus University told Danish news agency Ritzau.