https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/27/china-covid-restrictions-eased/



China will relax its infamously strict coronavirus restrictions for entry into the country starting Jan. 8, according to a lengthy list of new policies issued Monday by its National Health Commission. It is the most significant move so far to reopen borders that have been all but closed for nearly three years.

Arrivals into China with negative nucleic acid tests will be able to “enter society,” in a drastic change to the current practice, which sees all entrants at airports — foreign visitors and Chinese citizens alike — tested by hazmat-clad workers and ushered onto buses headed for quarantine hotels, where they stay for several days in isolation. Arrivals who continue to test negative will not have their movements restrained by China’s digital health passes.

Air traffic is expected to increase in both directions. Restrictions on the number of flights allowed into Chinese airports will be eased, according to the policies.

Meanwhile, outbound travel for Chinese citizens, who have largely not left their country since 2020, will be “resumed in an orderly manner,” the policies said. Upon release of the news, searches for international air tickets spiked in China, with Thailand, Japan and South Korea emerging as the most popular destinations, Chinese state-affiliated media reported.

The new policies are meant to help the resumption of travel for business, study and family reunions. However, there is no word on whether China will reopen for tourism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/21/man-dressed-officer-shoots-two/

Two people were shot Tuesday in Northeast Washington by a man who apparently posed as a police officer and wore a makeshift uniform, D.C. police said.

The gunshot victims, a man and a male juvenile, were seriously wounded and taken to hospitals, police said. The shooting occurred about 3 p.m. in the 6000 block of Clay Street NE, according to the police.

The man who was impersonating an officer was allowed into a “residential facility,” about 3 p.m., police said, basing their account on preliminary investigation. After being let in, and following a brief conversation, he drew a pistol and shot the victims, according to police.

Photographs released by police show a man with what appeared to be a badge on the front of his shirt or jacket. The back of the garment bore the word “police” in capital letters.

The gunman fled in a car, and police are looking for him, they said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/12/04/covid-hospitalizations-increasing-after-thanksgiving/

A post-Thanksgiving uptick in covid-19 patients at U.S. hospitals is arriving even as health systems contend with waves of feverish, coughing people stricken with RSV and influenza infections.

Covid hospitalizations last week reached their highest level in three months, with more than 35,000 patients being treated, according to Washington Post data tracking. National hospitalizations had stagnated throughout fall but started rising in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. All but a few states reported per capita increases in the past week.

Public health authorities are concerned that the increase in the number of covid patients will worsen the strain on hospitals already under pressure from the effects of two other viral ailments, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, widely known as RSV.

Nearly 20,000 Americans were hospitalized with influenza during Thanksgiving week, the most for that week in more than a decade and almost double the previous week’s count.

Nancy Foster of the American Hospital Association said members are still mostly raising concerns about RSV and flu rather than covid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/04/inflation-prices-going-down/



The price of gasoline is dropping like a rock. Chicken wings are suddenly a bargain. And retailers drowning in excess inventory are looking to make a deal.

After more than a year of high inflation, many consumers are finally starting to catch a break. Even apartment rents and car prices, two items that hammered millions of household budgets this year, are no longer spiraling out of control.

Global supply chains are finally operating normally, as more consumers spend more on in-person services like restaurant meals and less on goods like furniture and computers that come from an ocean away. The cost of sending a standard 40-foot container from China to the U.S. West Coast is $1,935 — down more than 90 percent from its September 2021 peak of $20,586, according to the online freight marketplace Freightos.

The moderation in inflation is just beginning to appear in government statistics. In October, the Federal Reserve’s preferred price gauge, the personal consumption expenditures index, posted its smallest monthly increase since September of last year, and is up 6 percent over the past 12 months. The better-known consumer price index is rising at an annual rate of 7.7 percent, down from 9.1 percent in June.

“The worst of the inflation is behind us,” said Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist for TS Lombard in New York. “The question is where does inflation settle?”