Is China’s no-tolerance Covid policy unsustainable?
China has largely kept Covid at bay since 2020 and is now going to the most extreme lengths yet in order to quell outbreaks in recent weeks. A growing number of people across the country have found their lives upended because of the new measures.
In a Shanghai shopping district, 40 people were held in a Uniqlo store overnight because a Covid case had been traced to the shop. In the same city, a woman was told to return to the office building she had visited on the day prior and then spent nearly 60 hours there locked down with more than 200 strangers while awaiting test results.
In the Shaanxi Province, local authorities locked down an entire neighborhood into quarantine for nearly 30 days.
At least 20 million people in three cities were put into a full lockdown as recently as last week. More cities across China have become more and more subjected to partial lockdowns and mass testing. Thirty plus major cities in China reported locally transmitted Covid cases in the past month.
The case numbers in China are tiny compared to stats worldwide. There were a total of 23 new cases in five cities reported on Friday. No Covid deaths have been reported during this latest mini-wave in China.
The cases were mostly due to the latest variant, Omicron, which is highly transmissible. Considering the high transmission rate of the variant, “zero Covid” is becoming a harder and harder policy.
Experts say that at this point, it’s a last-ditch effort to completely starve off the virus. Some say China is “stuck.”
But Chinese leadership continues to double down on its strategy, regardless of whether it’s sustainable. It relies heavily on mass testing, contact tracing, snap lockdowns, and hardcore border controls.
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