Covid-19 in China: It is business as usual, say Indian students

India is gearing up to contain the potential outbreak of Omicron subvariant BF7 as China the United States Japan the Republic of Korea Brazil and France have witnessed a surge in the coronavirus casesThe health experts in India have advised to adhere to precautionary and preemptive measures to fight against the potential rise in cases however insisting not to panicAfter three years of following strict Covid19 protocols China is witnessing the biggest wave of the pandemic with a sudden surge in Covid19 cases Nearly 248 million people contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December this year according to the recently released minutes from an internal meeting of Chinas National Health CommissionAlso read Lack of info on Chinas Covid outbreak stirs global concernsMidday spoke to Indian students studying in China who said that the new Covid19 positive cases were mostly mild and that more than 90 per cent of cases recovered in home quarantine onlyAccording to the government over 20000 Indian students are currently enrolled in Chinese universities A vast majority of them are studying medicineMirza Shafi a 25yearold medical student studying in Guangzhou city said ldquohellip and most of them positive cases are asked to home quarantinerdquoThe students also said that the country has not imposed stringent restrictions and people go about their routine following a ldquononmandatoryrdquo Covid19 protocolRidhi Gupta a final year medical student said ldquoWe go to malls supermarkets grocery stores and public places There are no restrictionsrdquo she said however people are wearing masks to protect themselves from the virus but ldquoit is not mandatoryrdquoEarlier people with green code who do not have infection or symptoms were allowed to access public places Mirza said but for the past 10 days everything is back to normalThe coronavirus pandemic that first surfaced in the Wuhan city of China affected various sectors including education Just like Mirza and Gupta over 20000 Indian students studying in China had to return home The universities arranged online lectures for the students for almost two yearsAfter protests in several Chinese cities following the Urumqi fire that charred 10 people to death China loosened restrictions pertaining to the longrunning zeroCovid policies that prohibited people from entering supermarkets and commercial buildings People no longer need to show tests for most venues and can travel more freely inside the countryThe sweeping changes indicate China is finally moving away from its zeroCovid policy and looking to lsquolive with the virusrsquo like the rest of the worldThe Indian students meanwhile after three years of pandemic were allowed to go back to China and complete their studies and internshipsGupta said that after returning to China she had to attend a few lectures online Presently ldquowe have online and offline exams depending on the subjects But besides wearing the mask there are no restrictions for attending offline examsrdquoThe students rued that the absence of directs flights to China from India had weighed in on their expenses Gupta said that a round trip to China would cost around Rs 50000 but in the absence of direct flights she had to spend almost two lakh rupeesrdquoIndian government should start direct flights for students to travel back to China to continue their studies said Shahroz Khan a studentrsquos representative and a student of Nantong Medical UniversityMeanwhile early this week hospitals across India carried out mock drills to check the operational readiness of Coviddedicated facilities with a specific focus on equipment procedure and manpower The drills took place after the central government issued an advisory a day before and asked states to step up their Covid19 related actions