In Xian, a city in northwestern China, Jing Mingzhu, who works in the food service industry, recently started traveling and going to the gym again. During a recent trip to southern China, she said, she realized the importance of feeling free and relaxed.

I took travel for granted, Ms. Jing said. After it was taken away, I felt I should cherish it.

Chinas leaders, hoping to bolster the economy, are eager for people to get back to work and start shopping and traveling again.

But they are also taking a cautious approach, requiring movie theaters and tourist sites, for example, to operate at half capacity. To get into banks, restaurants and other public venues, residents must submit to temperature checks and show digital codes verifying that they are healthy and have not traveled recently to areas where there have been clusters of new cases.

The authorities continue to restrict travel in the Xinjiang region in western China, where an outbreak last month prompted a lockdown. China still prohibits most foreigners from entering the country, for fear that they could bring the virus.

There have been outbreaks in recent months, but in each case the response was swift. When Wuhan reported six coronavirus cases in May, breaking a streak of more than a month without any confirmed infections, the city launched a plan to test all 11 million of its people. And when a new cluster emerged in Beijing in June, the authorities quickly reimposed some lockdown measures to contain it.

While China is not the only place where restrictions have eased Taiwan, for example, has kept the virus under control for months the semblance of normalcy has become a point of national pride and fodder for the countrys vast propaganda apparatus.

The state news media is pointing to the return of large gatherings and classes as evidence of Chinas superior response to the virus, especially compared with the United States and other Western countries whose officials are still dealing with large outbreaks.

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In China, Where the Coronavirus Pandemic Began, Life Is Starting to Look Normal - The New York Times