'Go all out': China prepares for infection spread after COVID policy U-turn

China put a priority on protecting rural communities from COVID-19 on Friday as millions of city-dwellers planned holidays for the first time in years after Beijing abandoned its stringent system of lockdowns and travel curbs, Qazet.az reports.

China's move last week to start aligning with a world that has largely opened up to live with the virus, followed historic protests against President Xi Jinping's signature 'zero-COVID' policies designed to stamp out COVID.

But the excitement that met this dramatic u-turn has quickly given way to concerns that China is unprepared for the wave of infections to come, even though officials have been trying to downplay the dangers posed by the less severe new COVID strain.

China reported 2,157 new symptomatic COVID-19 infections for Dec. 15 compared with 2,000 a day. The official figures, however, have become less reliable as testing has dropped. It also stopped reporting asymptomatic figures on Wednesday.