Chinese leadership hails ‘decisive victory’ over pandemic in ending zero-Covid policy
- Data shows move away from zero-Covid was ‘totally correct’, Politburo Standing Committee says
- Since November, ‘nearly 800,000 severe patients received effective treatment and our fatality rate was the lowest in the world’
Chinese leaders have hailed a “decisive victory” over the Covid pandemic and called the country’s successful exit from zero-Covid policy a “miracle”.
The conclusion was made public at a Politburo Standing Committee meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday. The Standing Committee is the top decision-making body of the Communist Party and Xi is the party’s general secretary.
“Since November 2022, we have continued fine-tuning our pandemic control policy and achieved a smooth change of course [in Covid control] in a relatively short period of time,” CCTV quoted an official read-out of the meeting as saying.
“Hence, more than 200 million people have been diagnosed and treated [for Covid] and nearly 800,000 severe patients received effective treatment, and our fatality rate was the lowest in the world.”
“[We have] scored an important and decisive victory in our prevention and control of the pandemic, and created a miracle in human history that a major populous country has successfully overcome a spreading pandemic,” the read-out said, adding that the results had proven the leadership’s decision was “totally correct” and had won the “recognition of the people”.
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China's slow road to economic recovery after dropping its zero-Covid policies
China’s sudden exit from its zero-Covid policy – which mandated tough lockdowns, strict quarantine and mass testings to stamp out the spread of the virus – was controversial with critics and Covid victims who contended that the authorities were ill-prepared and the exit was poorly executed.