In a major development amid the ongoing protests in China, the Chinese government on Wednesday has announced a series of measures in an effort to ease the draconian anti-COVID-19 restrictions imposed in the country. As per the latest announcement, the Chinese government has said that people with asymptomatic or mild COVID symptoms will now be allowed to quarantine at home rather than in state facilities.
The announcement also includes limiting the scale of the lockdown to individual apartment floors and buildings, rather than entire districts and neighborhoods.
Apart from this, the country has also scrapped PCR test requirements for most public venues except hospitals and schools.
Notably, the announcement came in view of the ongoing protests in several cities of China, including Shanghai and Beijing, over the strict “zero-COVID” policy imposed by the government.
Calls for Xi Jinping to step down
As angry protests against the COVID-19 lockdowns in China are spreading, the Chinese people have called for China’s powerful leader and President Xi Jinping to step down. Showcasing their anger over the imposition of the draconian zero-COVID strategy, the demonstrators could be heard raising slogans like “Xi Jinping, step down! CCP, step down!” in Mandarin during the protests.
Notably, the demand for Xi’s resignation intensified after the deaths of at least 10 people in an apartment fire in Xinjiang, which likely occurred when the region was under a strict COVID lockdown. China is currently witnessing its most aggressive protests in decades as protests in China are rare to see because voicing criticism of the leadership or the in the country may result in serious punishment in the country.