China's healthcare system put to the test as COVID curbs fade

People line up at a fever clinic of a hospital, after the government gradually loosens the restrictions on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) control, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China December 10, 2022. REUTERS/Martin Pollard

When Li tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday in Baoding in northern China, he braced for a five-day quarantine at a makeshift local hospital as part of the country's strict pandemic controls.

Instead, China the next day abruptly relaxed the policy that has made the world's most-populous country an outlier in a world largely learning to live with COVID.