The Chinese capital is moving to ease Covid-19 restrictions for much of the city, limiting them to areas that have reported community infections in the past week, according to the official Beijing Daily . Beijing will lift the restaurant dine-in ban on Monday which has been in place since May 1. Employees who had been asked to work from home can also go back to the office. Primary and secondary students will return to school in batches, with most going back on June 13, while kindergarten pupils will return to school on June 20. Universities must “strictly manage campus entry and exit access” and allow students to return to their homes and hometowns in a safe and orderly fashion in line with end-of-term arrangements. The relaxation came after university students in Beijing gathered on campus in protest over weeks of restrictions aimed at controlling Omicron-fuelled outbreaks in the capital. The city has reported more than 1,800 infections since April 22. Public transport passengers and people entering public venues and buildings will need a negative Covid-19 test result taken within 72 hours, instead of 48 hours as required before, as will people entering and leaving the city. Libraries, museums, cinemas and sports venues will reopen at 75 per cent capacity, and local travel tours will resume, providing participants have been fully vaccinated or boosted. However, the relaxed restrictions will not apply to Fengtai district in the city’s southwest and home to 2 million people, and parts of Changping district in the north, where cases were still reported on Sunday. Beijing municipal spokesman Xu Hejian said the city would continue to provide routine Covid-19 testing services and run tests in key areas and populations. “The epidemic situation in Beijing continues to improve and the outbreak has overall entered its final stage,” Xu said. “The current Covid-19 control focus is on Fengtai and Changping districts. We will stick to the existing strict measures, and achieve the goal of zero Covid as soon as possible,” he said, adding that the two districts would join the rest of the city in “routinised control” and adjust restrictions after they reported no Covid-19 cases in the community for seven days in a row. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education said students on Covid-free campuses in areas with outbreaks could return to their hometown with a negative test result taken within 48 hours after seven days or more of “closed-loop” management. Ministry official Liu Peijun said the students should go directly from campus to their hometown and undergo a week of health monitoring after reaching home. Liu said that for those who needed to be quarantined in hotels, Beijing had asked local governments to waive their fees and take care of their food, accommodation and medical needs. Zhu Wenzhong, deputy director of the passenger transport department at China State Railway Group, said 3.7 million student tickets had been sold since May and around 30 special trains for students had been run. The capital reported 19 Covid-19 infections on Sunday, including three asymptomatic cases, up from six in total a day earlier. Nine of the infections were in Fengtai district, while two were in Changping. Nationwide, the country reported 88 local infections on Sunday, 55 of which were asymptomatic, according to the National Health Commission. Shanghai, which ended its two-month citywide lockdown for its 25 million residents on Wednesday, reported six symptomatic cases compared with five the previous day, and 16 asymptomatic cases, up from nine a day earlier.
