China eases virus restrictions, officials report two deaths

HONG KONG: China on Sunday reported two additional deaths from COVID-19 as some cities move cautiously to ease anti-pandemic restrictions following increasingly vocal public frustrations.

The National Health Commission said one death was reported each in the provinces of Shandong and Sichuan.

No information was given about the ages of the victims or whether they had been fully vaccinated.

While nine in 10 Chinese have been vaccinated, only 66 per cent of people over 80 have goten one shot while 40 per cent have received a booster, according to the commission.

It said 86 per cent of people over 60 are vaccinated.

Beijing and some other Chinese cities announced that riders can board buses and subways without a virus test for the first time in months.

The requirement has led to complaints from some Beijing residents that evena though the city has shut many testing stations, most public venues still require COVID-19 tests.

On Sunday, China announced another 35,775 cases from the past 24 hours, 31,607 of which were asymptomatic, bringing its total to 336,165 with 5,235 deaths.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept Western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with COVID-19, and while recent protests there are not a threat to Communist Party rule, they could affect his personal standing, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Saturday. Haines, speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California, said that despite the social and economic impact of the virus, Xi “is unwilling to take a beter vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron.” “Seeing protests and the response to it is countering the narrative that he likes to put forward, which is that China is so much more effective at government,” Haines said.

“It’s, again, not something we see as being a threat to stability at this moment, or regime change or anything like that,” she said, while adding: “How it develops will be important to Xi’s standing.” China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Sunday.

One US official said there was “no expectation at present” that China would approve western vaccines.