Chinese struggle to ‘summon the courage’ to live with COVID-19

The 43-year-old resident of the central Chinese province of Hunan is a cancer survivor and she has just learned that even though there are COVID-19 patients in her building, the two-week lockdown imposed to curb the virus’ spread is to be lifted, Qazet.az reports.

“Wear your mask and don’t go to crowded places — we only have ourselves to rely on now,” Hu wrote in her family group chat on the messaging platform WeChat.

After nearly three years of a zero-COVID strategy that has sought to stamp out the virus wherever it has emerged with lockdowns, mass testing and centralised quarantine, China has suddenly begun to relax some of its most severe restrictions.

The shift in a policy that has held back growth in the world’s second-largest economy and disrupted the lives of millions of people came shortly after a wave of anti-lockdown protests swept across the country.

The relaxation of the policy has delighted many, especially those whose economic livelihoods have been harmed, but many are agitated about what might happen next, with health experts predicting a surge of coronavirus cases in a country where the vast majority of the people have not been exposed to the virus and many elderly people have not received full courses of the vaccine.