Beijing's sudden pivot away from containing Covid-19 has caused jitters around the world, with the United States saying it may restrict travel from China following its decision to end mandatory quarantine for overseas arrivals.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Tuesday that Japan will tighten border controls for COVID-19 by requiring tests for all visitors from China starting Friday as a temporary emergency measure against the surging infections there.

The announcement comes days after the World Health Organization said it was very concerned about rising reports of severe cases across China after the country largely abandoned its "zero-COVID" policy.

Companies welcomed China's decision to end quarantines for travelers from abroad as an important step to revive slumping business activity while Japan on Tuesday announced restrictions on visitors from the country as infections surge.

The ruling Communist Party's abrupt decision to lift some of the world's strictest anti-virus controls comes as it tries reverse an economic downturn. It has ended curbs that confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests, but hospitals have been flooded with feverish, wheezing patients as the virus spreads.

Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China's industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.

"They say there's no beds here," she barked into her phone.

Nearly three years after it was first identified in China, the coronavirus is now spreading through the vast country. Experts predict difficult months ahead for its 1.4 billion people.

China's unyielding "zero-COVID" approach, which aimed to isolate all infected people, bought it years to prepare for the disease. But an abrupt reopening, which was announced without warning on Dec. 7 in the wake of anti-lockdown protests, has caught the nation under-vaccinated and short on hospital capacity.

The head of the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon, Joe Salloum, warned Wednesday that the dramatic surge in the dollar exchange rate on the black market has led to “a near-complete halt of the delivery of medicines and baby milk to pharmacies.”

Pharmacies are “gradually running out” of medicines and baby milk, Salloum cautioned.

China's National Health Commission scaled down its daily COVID-19 report starting Wednesday in response to a sharp decline in PCR testing since the government eased antivirus measures after daily cases hit record highs.

A notice on the commission's website said it stopped publishing daily figures on numbers of COVID-19 cases where no symptoms are detected since it was "impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected persons," which have generally accounted for the vast majority of new infections. The only numbers they're reporting are confirmed cases detected in public testing facilities.

A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses were reported by social media users Friday in areas across China after the ruling Communist Party loosened anti-virus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump.

Official data showed a fall in new cases, but those no longer cover big parts of the population after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people. That was part of dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from "zero-COVID" restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.

People across China reacted with relief and caution Thursday to the dramatic government decision to loosen some of the world's most severe COVID-19 restrictions.

For the first time in months, Jenny Jian hit the gym in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou without being required to scan the "health code" on her smartphone, part of a nationwide system that tracks where hundreds of millions of people go.

In a sharp reversal, China has announced a series of measures rolling back some of its most draconian anti-COVID-19 restrictions, including limiting harsh lockdowns and ordering schools without known infections to resume regular classes.

The National Health Commission in a 10-point announcement on Wednesday stipulated that COVID-19 tests and a clean bill of health displayed on a smartphone app would no longer be required, apart from vulnerable areas such as nurseries, elderly care facilities and schools. It also limited the scale of lockdown to individual apartment floors and buildings, rather than entire districts and neighborhoods.