"In the morning, I saw a lot of breakfast restaurants resume their dine-in services in an orderly manner, and I felt that there were more people on the streets," Uncle Xie, a resident in south China's Guangzhou City, told Yangcheng Evening News. Many restaurants in the city had been closed in order to cut the spread of the COVID-19.

Xie walked the streets the morning after local authorities on Wednesday announced a raft of measures including reopening malls, restaurants and public transport services to recalibrate their response to COVID-19, bringing a sense of normalcy for local residents.

The city has lifted temporary restrictions in several districts, adapted close contact classification, and begun to classify high-risk areas by buildings and units, which, in principle, are given the designation if they report people infected with COVID-19 or that the risk of virus transmission is high.

Guangzhou is not the only Chinese city upgrading its virus control policy. Shenyang, Taiyuan, Beijing and other places have introduced new nucleic acid testing policies similar to those in Guangzhou, which said that testing should be conducted for people and work posts at risk of contracting the virus, instead of being carried out district-wide.

And in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, where local officials said a growing tally of infections has been curbed, close contacts of people infected with COVID-19 have been allowed to quarantine at home if they fulfill certain conditions.

The flexible measures are connected to the strain of this wave of COVID-19 on the Chinese mainland.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said the country's COVID-19 prevention and control work is facing a new situation and new tasks, with the weakening pathogenicity of Omicron, increasing uptake of vaccinations and growing disease response experiences, during a meeting with top public health and medical experts in Beijing on Wednesday.

Sun said China would take small steps to further upgrade its virus control policy and keep moving, as well as continue improving its diagnostics, testing, treatment and quarantine measures.

The vice premier also stressed the importance of boosting mass immunization, especially among the elderly, and accelerating preparations of drugs and medical resources, while ensuring a balance between disease control work and social and economic development.

She said that China has always put the safety and health of its people first during its three-year fight against the virus. Over the course, the country has released nine versions of disease prevention and control protocols and published a package of 20 modified measures, in accordance with the latest epidemic circumstances.

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A hallmark of the latest pandemic situation is that the dominant strain of Omicron and its subvariants are highly transmissible, but less virulent and less likely to cause severe diseases or deaths compared with the original novel coronavirus and previous key variants, according to experts.

The diminished virulence of Omicron results from the changing nature of the virus, as well as expanding immunization across the population and timely provision of treatment, said Chang Zhaorui, a researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on Tuesday.

By Monday, the Chinese mainland had fully vaccinated just over 90 percent of its population, according to National Health Commission.

The public's health awareness and knowledge have also improved significantly, Sun said during another symposium on Thursday with grassroots disease control workers.

She said enhancing triage systems at community medical centers, strengthening grassroots disease control and stepping up care for residents facing difficulties in their basic livelihoods and healthcare are required.

"It's necessary to treat the novel coronavirus scientifically. With more experience in fighting against the novel coronavirus, more and more in-depth understanding of the characteristics of the virus, and more and more ways to deal with it, citizens do not need to panic," said Zhao Yubin, head of Shijiazhuang People's Hospital.