The Chinese Foreign Ministry refuted on Wednesday the accusation made by the FBI that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, likely caused the COVID-19 pandemic and the ministry said that China resolutely opposes any form of political manipulation with the excuse of origins-tracing issue. The remarks came after FBI Director Christopher Wray said in an interview with Fox News which aired on Tuesday that the FBI has now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.

China's COVID-19 related death tolls halved from the previous weekly total of 6,364 to the most recent week's 3,278. A sharp decline in deaths and the downward trend of COVID-19 infections indicate that China has stepped out of the current wave, observers said on Sunday. China on Saturday reported 3,278 COVID-related deaths across 31 provinces and regions between January 27 and February 2, including 131 deaths caused by respiratory failure and 3,147 deaths from underlying diseases combined with COVID infections, according to a statement released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC).

A few days before the Spring Festival in 2020, I returned to my hometown - Yichang, a city about 320 kilometers away from Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, at that time there was no way to know that it would be the last Spring Festival, the most important traditional Chinese festival centered on the eternal theme of family reunion, I spent with my grandfather.

The oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine LAGEVRIO (molnupiravir capsule) has been on sale in many places across China, with different medical insurance reimbursement ratios.

​The possibility is relatively low that XBB and BQ.1 strains that are circulating in other countries will become prevalent in China in the first half of 2023 or trigger a spike in infections, according to a senior Beijing-based respiratory expert.

Around December 22, 2022, the number of COVID-19 infections and visits to fever clinics across China reached their peak with new infections surpassing 7 million and visits to fever clinics reaching 2.87 million on a daily basis, and the number of deaths reached a daily peak of 4,273 on January 4, according to a latest report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC).

Chinese online travel agencies and scenic spots have observed a significant recovery with air tickets, hotel booking and tourists visits during the 2023 Spring Festival holidays exceeding 2019 levels as consumer spending rebounded more than expected after China optimized its COVID-19 prevention measure.

With a huge passenger flow of about 5 billion trips expected during this year's Chinese Lunar New Year, COVID infection numbers in certain specific regions could rise, but the possibility of a large-scale epidemic rebound nationwide in the next two to three months is low, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC), wrote on his social media account Saturday.

There is no “perfect” emergency response, but rest assured that China has never taken the enemy lightly and is ready to fight the war unwaveringly till victory is finally claimed.

Sinopharm's Omicron-specific mRNA vaccine approved for clinical trials

Thailand's Department of Medical Sciences on January 6 confirmed the first case in Thailand of XAY.2, a Delta-Omicron recombinant variant, according to local media reports. The news has drawn widespread attention, with many worrying about whether this could lead to a further escalation of COVID-19 cases and how it might affect the epidemic situation in China.

China's leading pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) revealed that it has developed four potential Omicron-specific candidate vaccines, as experts call for quicker approval of such candidates, highlighting risk of surging cases during holiday.

Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province has entered the final stage of the epidemic, with 85 percent of the city residents having been infected with COVID-19, Guangzhou health authorities said on Wednesday. The current strain in circulation remains Omicron BA.5.2, and the XBB strain has not been detected in local cases.

China on Tuesday reported a 3-percent GDP growth for 2022. Considering what officials call “many unexpected” negative factors last year, the growth rate is a hard-won result for an economy as large as China's. Still, many foreign media outlets seized the slower growth rate to smear China's economic development and anti-COVID efforts over the past three years, while completely ignoring the global downturn and sharp declines in Western economies. As these charts show, China's response to the pandemic is much more effective in both protecting public health as well as minimizing economic losses.

No new COVID variants or mutations have been found in China, and the epidemic in China will not have a significant impact on other countries, Wang Wenbin, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday, urging the US to share its related data and information in a timely, open and transparent manner.

Year-to-date passenger traffic at the Sanya Phoenix International Airport in South China's Hainan Province was estimated to top 1 million by Tuesday, the fastest growth since 2021, airport data showed, fresh evidence of the economy's swift rebound from the coronavirus.

Since China downgraded its COVID-19 management on January 8, the daily average of people passing through entrance and exit points has reached 501,000, up by over 48 percent than before the announcement of COVID policy shift, according to official data on Tuesday.

During the past three years, China has launched a war against COVID-19, effectively handled more than 100 cluster outbreaks, and protected the lives and health of more than 1.4 billion people to the greatest extent. Confronted with epidemic uncertainties, China has always been putting people's lives and health first, adapting its COVID response in light of the evolving situation. These efforts have bought precious time for a smooth transition in its COVID response. Meanwhile, China has effectively coordinated COVID-19 prevention and control with economic and social development, with positive results seen and new achievements being consolidated, making it a reliable and important driving force of global economic growth. During the early days of 2023, with sounder COVID-19 response measures in effect, domestic demand increased, consumption was boosted, and production resumed rapidly, as consumer service industries recovered and the hustle and bustle of people's lives returned to full swing. Just as President Xi Jinping said in his 2023 New Year Address: "We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us." In this photo gallery, the Global Times has recorded the past three years with some memorable photos. The special photo story has two parts. This is the first part, telling that despite the optimization of China's epidemic response, one thing remains unchanged: China has always put the people's interests first – nothing is more precious than people's lives.

China's Ministry of Finance will further strengthen management of specialized funds targeting the prevention and control of COVID-19, including increasing support for rural areas and medical workers, establishing a “green channel” for medical supply procurement along with other measures, the ministry said in a notice on Monday.

The prices of many medical products such as N95 masks and oximeters have fallen back to normal as supply and demand get back into balance after China's recent COVID-19 infections wave fades.

The first batch of Molnupiravir, an antiviral medication developed by US company Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), has become available at a couple of hospitals across the Chinese mainland as a new option for COVID-19 patients.

To further strengthen technical exchanges and cooperation on epidemic prevention and control, China's top health authority spoke with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus about the country's COVID-19 situation on Saturday.

Molnupiravir, a COVID-19 drug co-developed by US company Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, was delivered by Sinopharm to medical institutions on Friday, marking the first delivery of the drug in the Chinese market.

China's fight against COVID-19 has not only protected Chinese people's lives and health, but also made an important contribution to the international fight against the virus over the past three years, Mi Feng, spokesperson for the National Health Commission (NHC), said at Friday's press briefing held by the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19.

China on Friday released the fourth edition of its guidelines for treatment of COVID critical patients, which stipulated that a patient, whether or not meeting critically ill threshold, will be designated as critical if he or she is aged above 65, not fully vaccinated, and has severe underlying conditions.

According to the monitoring data for coronavirus variants, China has found one XBB variant case domestically from December 1, 2022 to January 12, Chen Cao, a research fellow with the virology institute of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC), told a press conference on Friday.

According to virus gene data offered by China's National Health Commission (NHC), the current strains in China have the same gene sequence as virus variants in other countries, confirming that there are no new variants in China, Wu Xi, a senior official from China's foreign Ministry told a press conference on Friday.

A number of provinces and regions across China including Beijing, Chongqing, Henan and Jiangsu have reported that they have already passed the first peak of COVID-19 infections since December 2022. In this round of the epidemic, some cities have passed the peak of infections, but for some it has just started, so the infection peak will last for two to three months nationwide and the peak of severe cases will last longer, said Zeng Guang, a former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The COVID-19 treatment molnupiravir is expected to hit the Chinese market on Friday, after passing its first import test on Wednesday, said Liu Yong, president of Sinopharm, the dealer and exclusive agent for the drug in the domestic market.

David Hui Shu-cheong, an expert advisor to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government on COVID-19 and a professor of respiratory medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Medicine, made the remark during an exclusive interview with the Global Times on Wednesday.

Governments and local health authorities at the grassroots level in China's rural areas are required to ensure the supply of materials in the areas, and the availability of medicines should be kept for more than two weeks, according to guidelines for COVID prevention and control in rural areas released by the national rural revitalization administration on Sunday.

Sunday marked the first day of China's downgraded management of COVID-19 from Class A to Class B, and the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19 explained the latest edition of China's epidemic response protocol, as a move to further refine management toward reopening, based on science and the epidemic situation.

The proportion of COVID-19 patients of common type who developed pneumonia is about 8 percent of the total, Jiao Yahui, an official from the National Health Commission (NHC), said on Sunday in response to the public's concerns about the number of pneumonia cases around them, noting that the vast majority of the cases with pneumonia can be treated and cured after timely treatment and intervention.

While the Spring Festival travel rush, known as chunyun, officially kicked off on Saturday, China's top health authority called for enhanced epidemic prevention and medical treatment in rural areas given that many areas are dealing with insufficient medical resources and large populations.

China has always worked to collect, analyze and assess statistics on the COVID-19 epidemic as the data is key to formulating prevention policies and understanding changes in the epidemic situation, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a Friday press conference.

China has taken the initiative, not passively, to optimize its COVID-19 prevention measures and it has paid close attention to mutation of the virus and sought out better policies and treatments, Liang Wannian, head of China's COVID-19 response expert panel under the National Health Commission (NHC), told a press conference on Friday.

China will further optimize medical insurance coverage for #COVID-19 patients after downgrading management, with a major focus on fully guaranteeing hospitalization expenses.

Pakistan welcomes China's recent COVID policy adjustment and believes it will significantly contribute to the recovery and growth of the world economy, Pakistani Ambassador to China Moin ul Haque told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.

China's COVID situation is under control and many European Union (EU) member states have expressed a wish to warmly welcome Chinese travelers. The EU should listen to rational voices and view China's epidemic situation in an objective manner, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Fri in response to the EU's suggestion to impose travel restrictions on travelers from China.

Experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Southeast University attended the online briefing for member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday, according to the National Health Commission, a latest move by China to carry out close cooperation with the WHO.

China has accumulated mature experience in treating severe COVID-19 cases in the past three years, which is enough to deal with the current situation, a leading infectious diseases doctor told the Global Times, while calling for calmness and order rather than confusion or panic.

Since COVID began, China has shared information and data with the international community including the US in an open and transparent manner, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday, in response to the international community's concerns over China's epidemic situation and requests for more detailed and accurate information.

The first China-developed “artificial lung,” the extracorporal life support product, was approved for emergency market use for adult patients with a predictable risk of continued deterioration or death, National Medical Products Administration revealed on Thursday, adding to the country's latest efforts to optimize medical resources and strengthen treatment capacity for COVID-19 patients with severe illness while the Chinese localities are currently experiencing the peak of Omicron infections.

In response to the latest travel restrictions targeting travelers from China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that countries should not take discriminatory measures against China and advised Chinese citizens to fully understand entry requirements of their destinations before departure.

Shanghai has unveiled a new edition of tiered diagnosis and treatment for COVID-19 to guide medical institutions in classifying treatment of specific cases, listing basic clinical treatment including the use of small-molecule oral antiviral drugs.

​The possibility of a large-scale epidemic in China within a short period of at least three months caused by XBB variants including XBB.1.5 is extremely low, according to an article released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chin's CDC) on Wednesday on its official WeChat account.

The new Omicron subvariant XBB, which is prevalent in Europe and the US, has been detected in Chinese cities including Shanghai and Hangzhou, drawing concern for its high infectiousness and the possibility of causing another round of infections.

Chinese officials have reiterated China's openness and willingness to cooperate with the international community in sharing data to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. It came after the World Health Organization (WHO) recently said it had again asked China to regularly share epidemic data, which was hyped by some foreign media reports that questioned the transparency of China's data reporting.

With concern rising among Chinese public that the currently prevalent XBB variant in Europe and the US may cause another round of infections in China even among those who had recovered from COVID-19, experts have confirmed that chances of reinfection with XBB in the short term are very slim for those who have recovered from BA.5.2 and BF.7 strains.

Shanghai has detected the Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and XBB that have been prevailing in some overseas countries but experts said the two mutant strains were found in imported cases placed under closed-loop management which has not caused local transmission, saying there is no need to hoard Montmorillonite powder to relieve diarrhea that can be caused by subvariant XBB.1.5.

​China's top health official from the National Health Commission (NHC) said in an interview that the government had anticipated increased demand for medical treatment while optimizing epidemic prevention management, and was trying to delay peak infections as much as possible by increasing fever clinics and medicines.

In several of China's metropolitan cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the COVID-19 infection peak is expected to end around New Year's Day, according to a latest study by a leading Chinese research team.

Hospitals in many cities across China are working overtime during the New Year's Day holidays to battle the infection peak in an overall coordination of national epidemic fight amid adjustments of COVID-19 response.

About 1.75 percent of more than 16,000 residents infected with COVID-19 reported no symptoms, according to the latest survey in the city of Ordos, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The city's COVID-19 infection rate surpassed 60 percent, Ordos's health authorities said.

China's National Health Commission (NHC) held a virtual meeting themed around technical exchange for COVID-19 prevention and control on Friday with the World Health Organization (WHO). Senior officials from the NHC and Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) attended the meeting.

Shanghai top-tier hospitals call for hospital visits by non-urgent patients shunted to sub-tier hospitals which have been prepared with diagnosis and treatment as well as both imported and domestic antiviral medicine for COVID-19, to leave life-saving emergency resources to critical cases, which have gradually peaked in the city.

It's always possible to see new coronavirus variants emerge, but it will be less likely to see a pandemic caused by a more virulent variant, Chinese experts said, stressing the need to strengthen monitoring of mutated virus strains amid public concerns over possible variation during the present surge.

While in recent days hospitals in Beijing have been fully gearing up to battle against COVID infections and adopting various measures in treating severe illness, some prominent doctors and experts said that the overall rate of severe and critical cases is lower than that of the early outbreak in 2020 and that severe cases account for only about 3 percent to 4 percent of total hospitalized cases.

Universities and colleges across the country will no longer carry out mass COVID-19 nucleic acid testing and schools with no cases will resume in-person classes and activities, China's Ministry of Education (MOE) announced on Friday. This is the latest step in China's adjustment and optimization of epidemic prevention measures.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government on Thursday said it will continue to request the Japanese authorities to rescind all discriminatory restrictions on passenger flights departing from Hong Kong, after Japan required passenger flights from the city to land at only four designated Japanese airports starting on Friday.

China's daily output of ibuprofen and acetaminophen is now four times higher than at the beginning of December, Wang Jiangping, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said on Thursday. This is happening as the government and drug producers are ramping up measures to secure the supplies of cold and fever reducing drugs in responding to surging market demand.

Virologists and disease prevention and control departments deny reemergence of COVID-19 original variants and Delta in China, after concerns say the "old" variants are causing an increase in COVID-19 infections and some of the most severe cases show signs of white lungs in their CT scan results.

Chinese customs announced on Wednesday that it would revoke anti-COVID-19 measures, including nucleic acid testing, at ports of entry for all imported cold-chain foods and non-cold-chain items, effective January 8, when the country is scheduled to downgrade COVID-19 to Class B management.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), the country's civil aviation regulator, said on Wednesday that it will lift COVID-19 travel restrictions from January 8, vowing to restore international passenger traffic, subdued for three years due to the pandemic.

​Many places in China, including Beijing, Henan, Hainan and Sichuan provinces, have launched the second round of surveys to learn about the situation of residents infected with the coronavirus. According to the results released so far, the infection rate in Sichuan has exceeded 63.5 percent, which is 16.59 percent higher than the previous survey.

No Delta variant has been found to be prevalent in China, and no restructuring of the Delta or Omicron variants has been found either, experts said on Tuesday, in response to public queries over whether there are new COVID-19 variants being detected in the country. “Since the beginning of December, nine subvariants of the virus circulating have been detected in China, all of which belong to the Omicron strain,” Xu Wenbo, director of the national institute for viral disease control and prevention with Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), said in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday.

China has released a slew of COVID-19 response measures to instruct society and medical institutions to better address the surge of cases and achieve the goal of guaranteeing medical treatment and the prevention of severe cases as the country announced to downgrade COVID-19 management from Class A to Class B since January 8. Newly released measures include the expansion of medical resources and setting up a daily base mobilization mechanism to treat severe cases promptly, as well as conducting epidemic monitoring among key populations, key venues and viral mutation trends.

Some Chinese cities have undergone or are undergoing the first wave of peak infections. So far, there is no widespread death in the country and China is doing the best to protect health and lives of the public, said Liang Wannian, head of the expert panel overseeing the national Covid-19 response.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced on Tuesday that starting from January 8, 2023, nucleic acid tests will no longer be carried out on people entering the country, and that those with normal health declarations without abnormal customs quarantine will no longer undergo any special process.

Grassroots clinics for fever patients are being opened in many places across China, especially in small towns and cities, to enhance the capacity of the local medical system to deal with the epidemic. These changes are among the latest efforts by Chinese cities to cope with rising numbers of COVID-19 cases.

With daily new infections surpassing 1 million, the COVID-19 epidemic in East China's Zhejiang Province is expected to peak earlier around the New Year's Day and enter a high-level stage with the highest daily tallies reaching 2 million, local authorities said on Sunday.

Chinese government agencies and antigen testing kit manufacturers have been stepping up efforts to expand output as the demand for the kits surges along with the rapid increase of COVID-19 infection cases across the country.

Pharmaceutical companies in China are working overtime to produce drugs and gradually ease the tense demand situation as some cities show a serious shortage of medicines.

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) has removed nucleic acid testing requirements for arrivals from locations including Hong Kong SAR and the Taiwan region, which has taken effect from Friday, a step toward further easing pandemic related travel restrictions.

The overall medical supplies in China are sufficient and the epidemic situation is within forecasts and controllable, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday, adding that China continues to share related information with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the international community in a responsible manner.

The number of patients admitted to fever clinics across Beijing's hospitals on Wednesday has fallen by 11 percent from its peak in recent days, according to local health officials Thursday, as medical treatment demand in fever clinics becomes more stable, despite remaining at an elevated level.

As the COVID-19 outbreak in China gradually sweeps into rural areas where medical systems are relatively weaker, governments and medical experts are calling for coordinated collaboration between big hospitals and grassroots medical institutes. They ask the latter to upgrade their capacity of treating patients as the grassroots hospitals are facing shortages of medicine and medical staff.

Several Chinese cities including Hangzhou, are now allowing people with COVID-19 to apply for centralized quarantine, after many expressed concern over passing the coronavirus to others under the same roof, especially the elderly and children.

Chinese tech giant Tencent rolled out a new mini program on its WeChat platform aimed at helping people share their surplus medicine as the recent Omicron infection flare-ups have pushed up demand for analgesics and antipyretics.

With the continuous optimization and adjustment of China's epidemic prevention and control policy, many cities across the country have begun to distribute free drugs including cold and fever medicines to the public and implemented open package dispensing, in a bid to meet spiking demand.

China's top epidemiologist said at a press conference on Tuesday that the deaths of COVID-19 patients due to underlying diseases, which is the main cause of their deaths, are not counted as deaths from Omicron infections.

Many Chinese pharmaceutical companies are operating at full capacity to meet rocketing demand for cold and fever medicines, and thanks to various measures taken by the government and firms, the shortages are easing, according to industry insiders on Tuesday.

In light of the new developments in the COVID-19 epidemic, China is constantly optimizing its prevention and control measures to strike a balance between epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in response to remarks from the US Department of State about the global concerns over the current Chinese epidemic situation.

Beijing is stepping up resumption of production and business by allowing dine-in services, canceling nucleic acid testing requirement at some indoor entertainment venues as well as allowing recovered patients to return to workplaces without nucleic acid test results, while getting prepared to cope with the increasing infections following the adjustment of COVID-19 response.

Jinshan district in Shanghai on Monday initiated a plan to inoculate COVID-19 second booster shot for high-risk groups and the elderly residents, a latest move along with some other regions across China such as Beijing to step up the protection of vulnerable groups amid the anti-virus response optimization.

With more people getting infected with the fast spreading Omicron virus, demand for medicine such as ibuprofen has surged, making it one of the hardest to buy pharmaceuticals, but the situation is being eased as more Chinese cities ramp up supply.

Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong Province is strengthening its medical resource reserves, improving medical capability in an all-round way including increasing the number of ICU beds from 455 to 1,385, to prepare for a predicted epidemic peak in early January in 2023, a local health official said on Monday.

Multiple places across China are anticipating and getting prepared to cope with the peak of COVID-19 infections in January, as a travel rush during the Chinese New Year holidays is expected to speed up the spread of the virus, according to media reports on Sunday.

China's National Health Commission on Saturday issued a revised version of guidelines on blood donation, allowing close contacts, secondary close contacts of COVID-19 infections as well as recovered COVID-19 patients to donate blood.

Outdoor entertainment areas, commercial centers, and historical sites throughout many regions across China have slowly seen a return to normal over the last few days following the recent optimization of epidemic prevention measures including the scrapping of mandatory COVID testing and health code requirements.

This year's Spring Festival travel rush, or chunyun as it's called in Chinese, is expected to recover to 90 percent of the passenger flow of pre-pandemic 2019, with about 360 million railway passenger trips made and the average daily number of train trips reaching about 9 million, China Railway said on Friday during a press conference introducing preparation work for chunyun.

As the Chinese mainland adjusts its COVID policy and scraps many of its previous restrictive measures, calls from residents of both sides for more convenient travel between Hong Kong and the mainland have been growing. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Thursday that it is possible that Hong Kong and the mainland will realize quarantine-free travel next year.

Multiple reasons including the characteristics of new variants, cold temperatures in winter season and invalidation of previous vaccines have contributed to the raging COVID-19 infections in China in recent days, which should not be traced back merely to the relaxation of anti-epidemic policy, a former chief epidemiologist from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday at the Global Times annual conference.

China's transport ministry on Thursday released a notice to further implement optimized epidemic prevention and control measures for people arriving in Beijing, removing the requirement for them to do nucleic acid testing.

The State Council, China's cabinet, on Thursday called for efforts to improve logistics and safeguard the delivery of epidemic prevention supplies after the country eased anti-virus restrictions.

The German Chamber of Commerce in China said on Thursday that China's recent optimization of anti-COVID-19 measures is a "much-welcomed development" for German firms and the vast majority of German businesses remain committed to the Chinese market, which remains "unrivaled" for them despite calls for "decoupling."

“Be positive, be patient” has recently became a trending phrase on the Chinese internet as the number of people testing “positive” for COVID-19 is surging and more “patients” feel malaise with flu-like symptoms.

At least 11 districts in Beijing including Chaoyang, Xicheng and Haidian opened appointments to the public for inoculations using China's first aerosolized adenovirus vector vaccine for booster doses starting on Tuesday. At a press conference on Wednesday, the Chaoyang district government said that residents can make phone appointments for free, single-dose inhalable boosters, and encouraged those who have not yet been inoculated, especially the elderly, to get vaccinated as early as possible.

The Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) stressed on Wednesday that the country must strive to control COVID-19 outbreaks with the minimum scale affected, and the shortest time and lowest cost possible, in a bid to correct mistakes from overly strict measures that have caused damage to people's properties and lives. The Global Times found multiple regions in the country have vowed in recent days to implement precise epidemic controls so as to gradually restore the usual vitality of their cities.

Some 21.2 million residents of Chengdu, the capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, have been asked not to leave their homes unless necessary from 6 pm on Thursday, which puts the city under near-static management, to cope with a surging number of COVID-19 cases as the city has recorded 766 COVID-19 infections as of press time during the latest spike.