Beijing: In an effort to further open up, China has suspended or deleted the social media accounts of more than 1,000 people who have criticized the government's handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The well-known Sina Weibo social media site reported that 1,120 accounts had been temporarily or permanently banned after it addressed 12,854 violations, including assaults on experts, scholars, and medical professionals.

With almost all of its harsh lockdowns, quarantine measures, and mass testing abruptly abandoned last month, the Communist Party in power had largely relied on the medical community to defend them. This caused an increase in new cases that have strained medical resources to their breaking point. The party strictly restricts free speech and forbids any direct criticism.

According to a statement posted on Sina Weibo on Thursday, the company "will continue to increase the investigation and cleanup of all types of illegal content and create a harmonious and friendly community environment for the majority of users."

Open-ended travel restrictions that kept people in their homes for weeks, sometimes without access to food or medical care, have drawn the bulk of the criticism. The requirement that anyone who might have tested positive or had contact with such a person be kept in a field hospital for observation—where issues with crowding, subpar food, and hygiene were frequently mentioned—led to another outrage.

In the end, the social and economic costs led to unusual street demonstrations in Beijing and other cities, which may have influenced the party's choice to swiftly relax the strictest regulations.

With the start of the upcoming Lunar New Year travel rush, China is already seeing an increase in cases and hospitalizations in major cities and is preparing for a further spread into less developed areas. Authorities predict that domestic rail and air travel will increase by twofold over the same time last year, bringing total numbers close to those of the 2019 holiday season prior to the pandemic, despite the fact that international flights are still being curtailed.

The Transportation Ministry on Friday called on travelers to reduce trips and gatherings, particularly if they involve elderly people, pregnant women, small children, or those with underlying conditions.

Beijing plans to end mandatory quarantines for people arriving from abroad beginning on Sunday. The city also plans to drop a requirement for students to have a negative COVID-19 test to enter campus. Schools will be allowed to move classes online in the event of new outbreaks, but they must return to in-person instruction.

However, the end of mass testing and the scarcity of fundamental information about the incidence of severe cases, infections, and deaths, as well as the potential emergence of new variants, have prompted other governments to impose virus testing requirements for visitors from China.

The absence of data from China has raised concerns with the World Health Organization, and the United States now requires travelers from China to have a negative test result within 48 hours of departure.

More than half a million people tested positive for COVID in China, bringing the country's total number of cases to 482,057. People with mild symptoms are now allowed to test themselves and convalesce at home instead of undergoing compulsory medical tests.

The numbers are a fraction of those announced by the U.S., which has put its death toll at more than 1 million among some 101 million cases. But they're also much smaller than estimates being released by some local governments. Zhejiang, a province on the east coast, said Tuesday it was seeing around 1 million cases a day.

China has said the testing requirements being imposed by foreign governments—most recently Germany and Sweden—aren't science-based and has threatened unspecified countermeasures. Its spokespeople have said the situation is under control and rejected accusations of a lack of preparation for reopening.

If a variant emerges in an outbreak, it is found through the genetic sequencing of the virus.

China has shared fewer coronavirus sequences than any other country in the world, with a rate 100 times lower than the United States. Hong Kong also plans to reopen some of its border crossings with mainland China on Sunday. The region has been hard-hit by the virus, and its land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years.