Some of China's largest cities have announced an end to strict COVID-19 measures that have triggered protests across the country.
Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, announced the lifting of lockdowns in parts of the city that have recorded high numbers of infections and where violence flared up on Tuesday in outrage over the restrictions.
Videos posted on social media showed protesters in parts of Guangzhou clashing with riot police dressed in white protective gear and holding shields over their heads.
Authorities also declared an end to lockdown measures imposed on 24 high-risk areas across 11 districts in China's largest city of Shanghai, starting Thursday.
In Zhengzhou, the site of a big Foxconn factory making Apple iPhones that has been the scene of worker unrest over COVID, announced the "orderly" resumption of businesses, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants.
City officials from the south-western city of Chongqing said close contacts of people with COVID-19, who fulfil certain conditions, will be allowed to quarantine at home.
Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan on Wednesday called for further efforts to improve COVID-19 prevention and control measures, urging "optimisation" of testing, treatment and quarantine policies, as the virus weakens in pathogenicity.
"The country is facing a new situation and new tasks in epidemic prevention and control as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated and experience in containing the virus is accumulated," she said according to Xinhua.
She also said the country needs to improve immunization of the entire population.
The recent protests, the most widespread in decades, started after a building fire killed 10 people in the north-west city of Urumqi in Xinjiang last week.
Angry comments online speculated that pandemic control barriers prevented fire trucks from extinguishing the blaze and that residents wishing to escape were blocked from leaving by locked doors or other controls.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimated at least 51 protests across 24 cities have taken place in China since they began on November 25.
Chinese health officials said they would respond to "urgent concerns" raised by the public and that COVID rules should be implemented more flexibly according to a region's conditions.
However, authorities are becoming increasingly uneasy about the levels of dissent and protest.
Residents in Beijing have told Reuters they were visited by police.
"Police came to my front door to ask me about it all and get me to complete a written record," said a resident who didn't want to be identified.
Another resident said some friends who posted videos of protests on social media were taken to a police station and asked to sign a promise they "would not do that again".
In a statement that did not refer to the protests, the Communist Party's top body in charge of law enforcement agencies said on Tuesday that China would crack down on "the infiltration and sabotage activities of hostile forces".
The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission also said "illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order" would not be tolerated.
China encourages over 60s to get vaccinated against COVID-19
China's National Health Commission is launching a campaign that it says will encourage people over 60 to get vaccinated against coronavirus.
Nine in 10 Chinese have been vaccinated against COVID-19, the commission said.
But only 66 per cent of people over 80 have received one shot and 40 per cent of people over 80 have received a booster shot, it said.
The commission said it will send out mobile vaccination units to reach people who can't leave home.
"We hope elderly friends can actively complete the vaccination as soon as possible," commission spokesman Mi Feng said.
China uses vaccines made by domestic developers including Sinovac and Sinopharm, which the country's top infectious diseases official acknowledged last year were less effective than other vaccines.
It has withheld approval of mRNA vaccines such as the one invented by Germany's BioNTech, though a Chinese company bought distribution rights in 2020.
An infectious disease expert on Shanghai's COVID-19 team expressed confidence China can emerge from COVID-19 with the right vaccination program.
"Our diagnosis, treatment and vaccines have reached a very high level," Zhang Wenhong said at a November 18 medical conference in the southern city of Haikou.
"We are fully capable of finally taming the coronavirus."
However, China's small, overworked health care system, especially in the poor, populous countryside, could be overwhelmed if infections spiral as restrictions are relaxed.
Data from 2017 showed China had 4.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people, barely half of the average of eight in neighbouring Mongolia, a much poorer country, according to the World Health Organization.
ABC/Wires
