China’s relaxed rules mean little if ‘zero-Covid-19’ persists in practice

BEIJING - China’s health authorities last Friday announced 20 new measures apparently aimed at easing the inconvenience brought about by its

“zero-Covid-19” strategy

, but it remains to be seen whether these will pan out in practice.

On paper, the

shorter quarantine time

– from 10 to eight days – and the fact that flights carrying infected passengers will no longer be suspended suggest that China is gearing up to reopen to the world.