The World Health Organization said on Friday that it was happy that China has decided to loosen some of its COVID-19 restrictions in the aftermath of protests all around the country.
“We’re pleased to learn that the Chinese authorities are adjusting their current strategies and really trying to calibrate now the control measures they need… with the lives, the livelihoods and the human rights of people,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said at a press conference.
“It’s really important that governments listen to their people when people are in pain,” he added.
European Union chief Charles Michel spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the protests and the tough restrictions imposed as part of the zero-Covid policy. Michel told the media that Beijing has hinted at decreasing the restrictions in the wake of a less dangerous Covid strain.
According to AFP, Xi told Michel that Chinese “people were frustrated” after three years of the pandemic and the protests are an expression of the displeasure. While China did not agree with the European model of avoiding lockdowns, Xi suggested that few restrictions will be removed.
“It was mainly students or teenagers in university. That’s the explanation that was given,” one senior European official said, speaking on condition of anonymity about what Xi said in the meeting.
“As the president explained to President Xi, in Europe we’d initially in the first phase of dealing with Covid focused very much on isolation, quarantine and testing, but over a period of time that has evolved in particular to a very large focus on vaccination,” another source told AFP.