Rare demonstrations against the ruling Communist Party's zero-COVID strategy broke out across China late last month.
They expanded into calls for more political freedoms, with some even calling for President Xi Jinping to resign.
Authorities cracked down on subsequent efforts to protest while easing a number of restrictions, with some Chinese cities tentatively rolling back mass testing and curbs on movement.
The capital Beijing, where many businesses have fully reopened, said this week that commuters were no longer required to show a negative virus test taken within 48 hours to use public transport.
Financial hub Shanghai - which underwent a brutal two-month lockdown this year - announced the same rules, with residents able to enter outdoor venues such as parks and tourist attractions without a recent test.
And once dominated by doom and gloom coverage of the dangers of the virus and scenes of pandemic chaos abroad, China's tightly controlled media dramatically shifted its tone to support a tentative move away from zero-COVID.
The prevalent Omicron strain is "not at all like last year's Delta variant", Guangzhou-based medicine professor Chong Yutian said in an article published by the Communist Party-run China Youth Daily.
"After infection with the Omicron variant, the vast majority will have no or light symptoms, and very few will go on to have severe symptoms, this is already widely known," he assured readers.
But analysts at Japanese firm Nomura on Monday calculated that 53 cities - home to nearly a third of China's population - still had some restrictions in place.
Wednesday's announcement came hours after the government released further data showing the crippling economic impacts of zero-COVID.
Imports and exports plunged in November to levels not seen since early 2020.
Imports in November fell 10.6 per cent year-on-year, the biggest drop since May 2020, according to the General Administration of Customs. Exports fell 8.7 per cent over the same period.
For nearly three years, China has managed COVID-19 as a dangerous disease on par with bubonic plague and cholera, but since last week, top officials have acknowledged the reduced ability of the new coronavirus to cause disease while Chinese experts suggested it is not more deadly than seasonal influenza.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMieWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9jaGluYS1jb3ZpZC0xOS1uYXRpb253aWRlLWxvb3NlbmluZy1yZXN0cmljdGlvbnMtaG9tZS1xdWFyYW50aW5lLXBjci10ZXN0aW5nLTMxMjc4NDbSAQA?oc=5
2022-12-07 06:03:00Z
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