China has slashed the number of locations deemed at high risk of wider COVID outbreaks, re-opening locked down areas including one hosting a key factory of an Apple supplier. The number of high-risk areas tumbled to around 4,500 on Monday, official data showed, down 85pc from more than 30,000 on December 7 before the latest policy shift was announced. 

China has dropped testing prior to many activities, reined in quarantine and was preparing on Monday to de-activate a mobile app used to track the travel histories of a population of 1.4 billion people. A district in the city of Zhengzhou in central China where iPhone supplier Foxconn has a vast facility declared on Monday that it had released all high-risk zones from lockdown. Last month, thousands of workers fled the Foxconn facility on fears of COVID lockdowns, curtailing production.