China Reiterates Commitment to Zero-COVID Policy

BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s top leadership body, the Politburo Standing Committee, called for the unwavering support of the country’s “dynamic-zero” COVID policy on Thursday, during its first meeting since being unveiled at last month’s Communist party congress, state media reported.

The meeting, chaired by President Xi Jinping, stressed the need to minimise COVID’s impact on the economy.

“We must take more resolute and decisive measures to curb the spread of the epidemic as soon as possible and restore normal production and living order as soon as possible,” the leadership said at the meeting, according to Xinhua.

“We must not relax the necessary epidemic prevention initiatives,” the leadership body also said, according to Xinhua.

Elsewhere, the leadership body also called for China to “do a good job” of vaccinating key populations, which experts see as a key first step towards any possible exit strategy for China from its zero COVID-19 policy.

The seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, headed by Xi, will determine the path of the country’s development in the next five years.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe, Martin Pollard and the Beijing Newsroom. Editing by Jane Merriman and Tomasz Janowski)

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