Last month, Xi Jinping secured a third term as president, something no leader has done in decades. That event which took place as part of the 20th Party Congress included not just the elevation of Xi to a leadership status that may not end until he is dead, but also the public humiliation of the previous Chinese president Hu Jintao. Now that Xi’s power is secure, he has finally loosened his grip on the zero-COVID policy, at least slightly.

People entering China will now be required to quarantine in a hotel for five days followed by three days of isolation at home. Previously, visitors had to spend 10 days in quarantine, with seven of those in a hotel or government facility.

Officials also scrapped a penalty system for airlines bringing in travelers with Covid and reduced some of their more burdensome testing requirements, which effectively limited the number of people entering the country. Several Chinese travel platforms said searches for international flights surged on Friday.

Domestically, the government limited its contact tracing, part of a broader strategy of mass testing that has led to hundreds of millions of people being thrown into quarantine under heavy guard, provoking anger and discontent. It also got rid of other measures that had left many people stuck at home for weeks just because they lived in a neighborhood where a Covid case had been detected…

“This is no doubt an important rhetorical shift and may lay the groundwork for a move toward sustained gradual easing, but the market — as it does — is acting like ‘zero-Covid’ is over,” said Taylor Loeb, a China analyst at Trivium, a consulting firm. “That’s just wrong. You don’t unwind a nearly three-year top-level national policy overnight.”…

China reported more than 10,000 local cases on Thursday, its highest daily count in more than six months, putting to test a Covid strategy that is still largely focused on eliminating the virus.

There was also another sign today that China is making some slight concessions to those who are tired of endless lockdowns. Nine state workers in Linyi city have been arrested after video circulated showing them enforcing COVID restrictions by beating a man and dragging him through the street.

Nine coronavirus lockdown enforcers in China are under arrest stemming from a video showing them appearing to attack residents as the country continues to enforce stringent coronavirus restrictions.

The state workers wearing hazmat suits can be seen in the video, taken on November 7, dragging locals across the pavement before beating them, in the city of Linyi in the south of China’s Shandong province, according to Viral Press.

The Lanshan Police Department said that nine of the pandemic workers had been arrested for using “excessive force.”

“The public security force will severely crack down on illegal and criminal acts that infringe upon citizens’ personal safety and other legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law, and spare no effort to maintain social harmony and stability,” the police said in a statement.

Video of the beating is available at Fox News. I don’t suspect Xi Jinping cares about a few people being beaten for disobeying his orders but he does care about video of people being beaten going viral so that other people see it. So the people responsible will be arrested. But if you’ve been following this story you know that cruel treatment of citizens is a pretty routine part of the zero-COVID process. This clip was posted yesterday.

It's quite a mess in #Guangzhou as a partial #lockdown was announced. People try to hoard food at midnight, and workers want to break the line and escape…#CCPChina, #COVID19, #CCPVirus #AmazingChina #COVID #ZeroCovid pic.twitter.com/NcG8yuTgPn

— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferzeng97) November 11, 2022

Earlier this month CNN reported on a 14-year-old girl who died of a fever while in a quarantine facility. Her father uploaded the video and pleaded with the communist party to investigate.

14 year old girl dies in a quarantine facility in China;
Protests in Lanzhou over death of a 3 year old boy who couldn't make it to the hospital on time;
People forced to quarantine in cold parking lots & male bathrooms.
Frustrations over zero covid are mounting @OutFrontCNN pic.twitter.com/BYBhYIbtZl

— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) November 4, 2022

Today, CNN’s Selina Wang said the new policy changes aren’t the end of zero-COVID, just a “fine tuning” of the policy. “These are baby, incremental changes,” she said.

China eases covid restrictions. Significant that there's any change at all, but zero covid is not going away. These are baby steps
-cut total quarantine time from 10 days to 8 days for inbound travelers + close contacts
-no longer identifying close contacts of close contacts@cnn pic.twitter.com/9L0zQ5ITw4

— Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) November 11, 2022