BEIJING: Manufacturers and eateries in China are choosing to err on the side of caution by retaining COVID 19 curbs until they get a clearer picture of how workplaces will be affected by the easing of stringent measures.
The world's second largest economy is bracing for a wave of infections as it relaxes its zero-COVID policy, winding down a campaign of hunting out and isolating infections as it hands back most of the task of detection and treatment.
National health officials have urged high-risk areas to be defined more broadly while production or business operations continue elsewhere in sparse comments on workplace conditions.
We are still under closed loop management with workers not allowed to leave the factory, a manager at a leading stainless steel mill in eastern China, who gave his surname as Dai.
He said that the mill wanted to hold down infections as much as possible with the system in which workers live and work onsite, isolated from the wider world.
The businesses told Reuters they were sizing up the uncertainty, as they were expecting to have to deal with long periods of absence by sick workers that could cause crimp operations, perhaps for months longer.
While authorities have scrapped testing as a pre-requisite for many activities, hotpot chain Haidilao said it would continue to require daily PCR tests for staff working at its dine-in outlets in Beijing, the capital.
Many nations exiting COVID 19 curbs overcame similar challenges in restoring business activity, but Chinese firms' scramble exposes the difficulties ahead in reviving a slowing economy, making it a global outlier by the zero-COVID approach.