BEIJING/HONG KONG, Dec 12 (Reuters) - People queued outside fever clinics at hospitals in China to be tested for COVID-19 on Monday, a fresh sign of the rapid spread of symptoms after authorities began dismantling strict restrictions on movement.
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Three years after the pandemic, China is moving to align with a world that has largely opened up to living with COVID, making a major policy change last Wednesday after unprecedented protests.
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It dropped tests before many operations, reined in quarantines and was preparing to disable a mobile app used to track the travel history of a population of 1.4 billion people.
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But with little exposure to a disease largely under control until now, analysts say, China is unprepared for a wave of infections that could strain its fragile health system and bring businesses to a halt.
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Lily Li, who works at a toy company in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, said several employees, as well as workers at suppliers and distributors, were infected and were isolated at home.
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In Beijing, about 80 people zipped out of a fever clinic in the cold-plagued Chaoyang district as ambulances zipped by.
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A Beijing government official said on Monday night that there were 22,000 visits a day to such clinics, 16 times more than the previous week.
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In recent weeks, local cases have trended lower from a peak of 40,052 in late November.
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But the figures reflect a decline in the need for testing, analysts say, while health experts warn of an impending increase.
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In comments to the state-backed newspaper Shanghai Securities News on Monday, Zhang Wenhong, head of a group of commercial center experts, said the current outbreak could peak within a month, although the end of the epidemic could be three to six months.