'Go all out': China prepares for Covid spread as holiday travel looms

To step up support for economy in 2023 amid pandemic pains

China set out urgent plans to protect rural communities from Covid-19 on Friday as millions of city-dwellers planned holidays for the first time in years after it abandoned its stringent system of lockdowns and travel curbs.

China's move last week to start aligning with a world that has largely opened up to live with the virus, followed historic protests against President Xi Jinping's signature 'zero-Covid' policies designed to stamp out Covid.

But the excitement that met this dramatic u-turn has quickly given way to concerns that China is unprepared for the coming wave of infections, and the blow it could deliver to