There was talk of this over an hour ago from the Chinese state media but said reports were pulled subsequently. But we are now seeing headlines from Bloomberg that are stating this, reaffirming that we are seeing a further shift in China's Covid measures. The pivot away from the zero-Covid approach is gathering pace.
It is being reported that Beijing is to let some low-risk Covid patients isolate at home. The change is said to be sparked by the latest protests and stretched infrastructure.
Adding to this, we are seeing quite a number of Chinese talking heads that are selling the message that Covid is not as virulent as it was before.
Former Global Times editor, Hu Xijin, said that "COVID-19 is no longer as dangerous to humans as it used to be, so we do not need to panic about Omicron variants", citing remarks from an expert from the State Key Laboratory of Virology at Wuhan University (h/t @ Sino_Market).
And China's vice premier, Sun Chunlan, has also stressed on more efforts to "optimise" Covid control and prevention measures as the virus becomes "less pathogenic". For some context, Sun was the official that went to Shanghai earlier in the year to instruct local officials to step up lockdown measures.
That kind of tells you how much the script has changed.
