Like most Chinese, Beijing resident Wang was happy and relieved when she heard last week that China was dropping almost all of its zero-COVID policy curbs. A day later though, the 43-year-old lost her job as one of the city's many hazmat-suited COVID swab testers.
"The leader of our group told me in person I was no longer needed because of the new policy," she told Reuters, declining to give her full name.
That U-turn has meant a change in fortunes overnight for those companies as well as firms involved in quarantining, COVID-tracking and movement-monitoring products and services. Analysts' estimates gathered by Reuters in May had put China's planned COVID-related spending this year - of which these industries formed a large part - atSome less conservative estimates had even put this year's potential cost of mass-testing alone - with commuters in big cities requiring negative tests every one or two days - at 1.5% to 1.8% of China's gross domestic product - more than Qatar's GDP.
Some also dropped plans to buy software that tracks the spread of COVID or alarms for doors of people under lockdown to monitor if they left their homes.
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