BEIJING - Amid a ballooning caseload of COVID-19, China's recent months of discreet reopening can offer fresh valuable lessons for an array of countries, which are now faced with rising risks posed by their hasty decision to return to a new normalcy of life and rash exit from lockdowns.

With COVID-19 largely under control at home, China has been putting economic and social activities back on track while at the same time working to prevent a potential new surge of the infectious disease that has taken a heavy toll on the human society.

To achieve this goal, a return to work should be phased and careful. Factories of medical supplies and other key materials in epidemic prevention began humming again in late January, accompanied by gradual recovery of petrochemical, telecommunications, electricity and transport industries in the following weeks. Businesses in the service sector, such as catering and retail, did not begin to bustle until the epidemic steadily receded in the country in March.