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Beijing's Strict ‘Zero-COVID’ Policy Set to Last Five Years, State Media Says—and Then Deletes

A hashtag related to the announcement was deleted from Weibo after the alarming news went viral.

The hardline “zero-COVID” approach adopted by Chinese authorities to handle the pandemic may be set to last five years in Beijing, according to a notice published in state media Monday. “In the next five years, Beijing will unremittingly grasp the normalization of epidemic prevention and control,” the announcement said, which first appeared in Beijing Daily. After the news was reported by other outlets and went viral on social media, the reference to “five years” was removed in online reports and a hashtag associated with the announcement was deleted from social-media platform Weibo. China has consistently stuck with its stringent COVID policy, which has seen millions of people subjected to mandatory mass testing and travel restrictions even in 2022.