Why China's COVID Success is Impeding Return to Normal
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Image: Hanna Barczyk
China: Cut off from the Outside World
China’s commitment to achieving zero Covid-19 cases means most of its citizens will probably be cut off from the outside world until midway through 2022, or even the year-end, delaying a full return to normal for the world’s second-largest economy. Beijing could even wait until later to reopen to visitors, despite the fact more than 85 per cent of its population is fully vaccinated in meanwhile.
“In China, once an institution is built, it’s hard to tear down,” said Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health. “The zero-tolerance strategy has worked well for a long time so it’s hard to move to an opening up strategy.”
Zero-tolerance policies helped restore economic growth in China and many other east Asian countries in the early months of the pandemic. But analysts warned the strategy could become a liability if governments were unable to come up with clear exit strategies.
China maintains strict requirements for travellers entering the country, including mandatory swab tests and at least two weeks of quarantine in state-approved hotels. Beijing has repeatedly emphasised the need to be vigilant against cracks in its pandemic defences. Local governments have been pressed to not relax restrictions despite rapidly climbing immunisation.
"Omicron spread shows China got it right"
In December 2021, China’s No 1 epidemiologist who helped shape its Covid-19 response went even further and stated that that the Omicron spread shows China got it right on Covid-19 strategy. Zhong Nanshan said that the Wuhan lockdown was landmark decisive move that drastically contained the spread of the coronavirus in China, and credits rapid testing and universal vaccination coverage, along with stringent controls with country’s success.
As the Omicron variant spreads across the world at an alarming rate, China is not prepared to loosen its grip ahead of the Lunar New Year starting February 1. The total number of Chinese patients diagnosed with Covid-19 was about 120,000, he said. “For some countries, their daily cases alone would exceed that number. We managed to keep the additional cases to only 40,000 over the past 20 months. This is stable and persistent [policy] that has allowed economic activity to resume as normal,” Zhong told the conference. He also hailed China’s success in containing the coronavirus, attributing this to early identification, diagnosis, quarantine, immediate treatment and vaccination coverage.
“Rapid testing played a critical role for [helping] China to obtain such a remarkable pandemic victory,” Zhong said, adding that universal vaccination played a key role.
Vigilant Against Cracks in the Pandemic Defences
But for the economy to return to its full potential, the country would need to restore international travel, analysts said, an imperative that would only gain importance as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics in February. “The event will be even more challenging than Tokyo because it’s in the winter when the virus spreads more easily,” said Yale’s Chen.
China’s leaders have begun to speak more frequently about the need for immunity passports to allow international travel. But Beijing has signed few agreements with other countries because of the problem of mutual recognition of each other’s vaccines. Beijing has yet to approve any non-Chinese vaccine, even though mRNA jabs developed by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna have an efficacy rate of about 95 per cent.
That rate is significantly higher than China’s leading inactivated viral vaccines from state-run Sinopharm and private company Sinovac, which Chinese officials have occasionally acknowledged. Neither of the Chinese jabs has received regulatory sign-off in Europe or North America.
Image: Bloomberg
Keen To Maintain 0 Cases
China is nearing herd immunity 85.64 percent of the Chinese population fully vaccinated ahead of the coming New Year and Spring Festival travel rush, which is expected to see passenger trips surpass the 1.48 billion taken in 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced on Wednesday.
Given such a high vaccination rate, together with China's mature dynamic zero-case policy, experts said the possibility of a major epidemic resurgence during the two holidays is low, but they warned people not to let down their guard as the country continues to face threats posed by the epidemic overseas and the highly contagious Omicron strain.
The chance of having a large-scale flare-up during the holidays is low, Zhang Yuexin, a medical expert specializing in epidemic prevention and control, told the Global Times on Wednesday. Prior to the holidays, the country mapped out concrete measures to detect and prevent COVID-19 resurgence, and to prevent and cope with emerging outbreaks.
In two years, the country has frequently adjusted and optimized the dynamic zero-case policy, which has proved to be correct, Zhang said. The epidemic resurgence in Xi'an still poses a higher chance of community transmission, but it should not have a great impact on the travel rush during the upcoming Spring Festival.
A dynamic zero-case policy does not mean zero infections, as nobody can guarantee that not a single local case will occur when the country continues to get imported cases, Zhang noted. In July 2021, Guangzhou started work on an “international health station”, or purpose-built quarantine hotel, with 5,000 rooms and high-tech health monitoring equipment.
The government would be keen to maintain zero cases through the Winter Olympics and perhaps until after an important party congress and leadership changes in late 2022, said Feng Chucheng, founder of Plenum, a Beijing-based consultancy.
If it achieved this, it could then “declare victory against the pandemic and the superiority of China’s political system”, he said.
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