By Brenda Goh and Farah Master
SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) -People&nbsp;in&nbsp;China&nbsp;celebrated&nbsp;the&nbsp;withdrawal&nbsp;on&nbsp;Tuesday&nbsp;of a&nbsp;state-mandated&nbsp;app&nbsp;used&nbsp;to&nbsp;track&nbsp;whether&nbsp;they&nbsp;had&nbsp;travelled&nbsp;to&nbsp;COVID-stricken&nbsp;areas, in the&nbsp;latest&nbsp;loosening&nbsp;of&nbsp;some&nbsp;of the world's&nbsp;toughest&nbsp;anti-virus&nbsp;rules.
As authorities deactivated the 'itinerary code'&nbsp;app&nbsp;at midnight on Monday,&nbsp;China's four telecoms firms said they would delete users' data associated with the&nbsp;app.
"Goodbye itinerary code, I hope to never see you again," said a post on social media platform Weibo, where netizens cheered the demise of an&nbsp;app&nbsp;that critics feared could be&nbsp;used&nbsp;for mass surveillance.
"The hand that stretched out to exert power during the epidemic should now be pulled back," wrote another user.
For all the relief over the decision last week to begin dismantling key parts of the government's stringent 'zero-COVID' policy, there are fears that&nbsp;China&nbsp;could now pay a price for having possibly protected its 1.4 billion&nbsp;people&nbsp;too well against the&nbsp;virus.
The potential for a surge of infections during the Chinese New Year holiday next month, when&nbsp;people&nbsp;travel across the country to be with their families, remains a danger for a population that lacks "herd immunity" and has relatively low vaccination rates among the elderly, according to&nbsp;some&nbsp;analysts.
Itinerary codes were mainly&nbsp;used&nbsp;to&nbsp;track&nbsp;domestic travel within&nbsp;China, while authorities also use so-called health codes that residents must scan to enter public venues in order to check&nbsp;whether&nbsp;they may have been in contact with the&nbsp;virus.
The moves made last week to unwind the&nbsp;COVID&nbsp;curbs included dropping mandatory testing prior to many public activities and reining in quarantine.
Long queues outside fever clinics were a worrying sign that a wave of infections is building, even though official tallies of new cases have trended lower in recent weeks as authorities rowed back testing.
While&nbsp;China&nbsp;has not announced that the health codes will be scrapped, several cities including Shanghai have said that residents are no longer required to show these codes when entering places such as shops and restaurants.
The&nbsp;loosening&nbsp;of controls has come hard on the heels of historic protests against President Xi Jinping's signature 'zero-COVID' policy.
The demonstrations, which ranged from candle-lit vigils in Beijing to street clashes between angry residents and riot police in Guangzhou, were the biggest show of public discontent in mainland&nbsp;China&nbsp;since Xi came to power in 2012.
OPENING UP
Beijing's envoy to the United&nbsp;States on Monday said he believes&nbsp;China's&nbsp;COVID-19 measures will be further relaxed in the near future and international travel to the country will also become easier.
China&nbsp;has all but shut its borders to international travel since the pandemic first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in later 2019. International flights are still at a fraction of pre-pandemic levels and arrivals face eight days in quarantine.
Financial hub Hong Kong, which already has less stringent border controls than mainland&nbsp;China, on&nbsp;Tuesday&nbsp;said it would drop a requirement for incoming travellers to avoid bars and restaurants in the first three days after their arrival.
Hong Kong will also scrap its mobility-tracking&nbsp;app&nbsp;governing access to restaurants and venues such as gyms, clubs and salons, Chief Executive John Lee said on&nbsp;Tuesday.
While the lifting of controls is seen as brightening the prospects for global growth longer term, analysts say Chinese businesses will struggle in the weeks ahead, as a wave of infections create staff shortages and make consumers wary.
Analysts say the decline in reported new cases could reflect the dropping of testing requirements rather than the actual situation on the ground.
"The rapid surge of infections in big cities might be only the beginning of a massive wave of&nbsp;COVID&nbsp;infections," said Ting Lu, Chief&nbsp;China&nbsp;Economist at Nomura.
"We reckon that the incoming migration around the Chinese New Year holiday in late January could bring about an unprecedented spread of&nbsp;COVID."
Experts say&nbsp;China's fragile healthcare system could be quickly overwhelmed if those fears are realised.
In&nbsp;China's capital Beijing, empty seats on commuter trains and deserted downtown restaurants have underlined the hesitancy&nbsp;some&nbsp;people&nbsp;harbour about embracing new found freedoms.
"I can understand," Gao Lin, a 33-year-old financier, told Reuters on the streets on the capital. "Maybe other&nbsp;people&nbsp;are afraid or are worried about kids and grandparents health conditions. It&rsquo;s a personal choice."
China&nbsp;stocks edged lower on&nbsp;Tuesday&nbsp;as a recent rebound triggered by reopening hopes lost steam amid concerns of a spike in&nbsp;COVID&nbsp;infections.
China's yuan, which is down almost 9% against the dollar this year and heading for its worst year since 1994, when&nbsp;China&nbsp;unified the official and market exchange rates, was little changed on&nbsp;Tuesday.
(Reporting by Bernard Orr in Beijing, Brenda Goh and Shen Yiming in Shanghai and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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China waves goodbye to tracking app as COVID controls ease