China allows home quarantine in big shift from zero-COVID

SHANGHAI/HONG KONG — China on Wednesday announced a rollback of its zero-COVID policy in a marked shift away from virus curbs that triggered nationwide unrest, putting it on course to living with the respiratory illness.

People who are asymptomatic, or who have mild infections, will now be allowed to quarantine at home, rather than being forced into government facilities, while mass PCR testing, a key feature of government efforts to quash even small outbreaks, will be largely abandoned.