What will China’s Covid-19 new normal look like? Health chiefs paint a cautious picture

Authorities are easing the last of the country’s emergency restrictions but constant monitoring will be here for the longer term, they say

Control of the pathogen could be five years away, WHO chief scientist warns

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Workers disinfect the seats at the Yantai Grande Theatre to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus in Yantai, Shandong province, as the country prepares to gradually reopen entertainment venues. Photo: VCG/Visual People

Published: 9:00pm, 14 May 2020Updated: 10:58pm, 14 May 2020

Chinese health authorities have outlined precautions for the country’s Covid-19 new normal over the long haul, with epidemiologists warning that the pandemic coronavirus will not be brought down any time soon.

The epidemic has stabilised in most parts of the country and China lowered its health emergency rating earlier this month. As they relax the last of the emergency restrictions, authorities are reopening schools and entertainment venues to resume life and production.

But Shi Xiaoming, head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s environment institute, said life would not go back to what it was.

“The reopening [of public venues] is conditional,” Shi said in Beijing on Wednesday.

Shi’s note of caution came as World Health Organisation chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan forecast that it would be four or five years before Covid-19 was under control.

Addressing the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom digital conference, Swaminathan offered a bleak assessment of the difficulties ahead.