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Why China is sticking with its ‘COVID Zero’ strategy

Why China is sticking with its ‘COVID Zero’ strategy

A healthcare worker disinfects a Covid-19 testing site in Beijing. (Photo: Andrea Verdelli/Bloomberg)

Two years ago, China was being lauded by the World Health Organization for its success in beating the coronavirus. But its insistence on adhering to a so-called COVID Zero policy is leaving it increasingly isolated as other countries, most of which suffered far worse outbreaks and higher death tolls, wean themselves off harsh countermeasures and return to a semblance of pre-pandemic life.

Their populations have built up a large degree of protection through previous infections and more effective vaccines. Chinese officials have said vaccines alone aren’t enough and stringent curbs aimed at wiping out the virus are needed to avoid a health care calamity.

1. Does COVID Zero mean zero cases? 

Yes, ideally anyway. Beijing’s perception of COVID-19 hasn’t changed much since the virus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan: It’s a public health threat that must be eliminated at all costs, whether it’s spreading via people or animals or lurking on frozen food or mail from abroad.

To achieve this, China requires at least two weeks in quarantine for anyone arriving from other countries. Domestically, even the slightest flareup is met with a barrage of targeted testing, contact tracing and quarantines to nip it in the bud, with citywide lockdowns as a last resort.

The approach, which has become known as “dynamic clearing,” acknowledges that infections occur but aims to prevent future cases by stopping the forward transmission of the virus. But the highly infectious Delta and Omicron variants are making it more difficult for China, which saw successive flareups last year and hasn’t reported zero domestic daily cases since October.

2. Why is China sticking to it?

In its calculus, the benefits of COVID Zero outweigh the costs. The government estimates the strategy has avoided one million deaths and 50 million illnesses.

Fewer than 5,000 people died from COVID-19 in the country, and most of those occurred during the virus’ initial spread in Wuhan. That compares to more than 900,000 deaths in the US, which has a population less than a quarter the size of China’s.

Beijing has used those figures to portray its system of governance as superior. COVID Zero has also allowed the Chinese economy, the world’s second biggest, to grow while other major economies contracted in 2020.

The industrial economy remained largely unscathed from more frequent flareups toward the end of 2021, with record growth in exports from strong demand overseas. The infections and restrictions to contain them did occasionally snarl supply chains and made it harder for companies to hit production numbers in some locations.

3. What’s the domestic downside? 

As the virus has mutated to become more contagious, it’s led to more frequent outbreaks, some of which have required hardcore lockdowns to contain. A handful have dragged on for weeks and led to shortages of food and medical care, and even cost lives in the western city of Xi’an. Outbreaks in other major cities including Beijing and Shanghai have been suppressed without city-wide lockdowns.

Still, consumers facing travel restrictions and fearing infections have avoided vacations, shopping and dining, dampening retail spending. Sporadic cases and restrictions added to weak investment and a broader downturn in the property market toward the end of 2021.

Goldman Sachs Group cut its forecast for China’s growth in 2022 by 0.5 percentage points due to the increased difficulty of containing the Omicron variant. In an extreme case where a national lockdown is imposed, economic growth could plunge to 1.5 per cent, the lowest in more than four decades, the bank said. 

4. What are the hurdles to getting back to normal?

There are several: 

While nearly 90 per cent of the population has been vaccinated and a growing number received boosters, many analysts point to the lower efficacy of vaccines developed in China. The most widely used are inactivated shots, which offered less protection against infection caused by the original strain of the virus in clinical trials than the novel mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna.

The inactivated vaccines also appear to produce fewer protective antibodies against the latest variant, Omicron, than those induced by shots developed in the West after three doses.

Chinese health officials have made it clear that vaccination alone isn’t enough to keep the virus at bay, since breakthrough infections are common even with Western vaccines. Modelling by researchers at Peking University estimated China would face a “colossal outbreak,” with more than 630,000 infections a day if it were to reopen in a similar manner to the US.

The run on hospitals across the world, both in under-resourced places like India and in the developed world, is a constant reminder about how China’s patchy hospital network could easily crash under a sudden spike in infections.
Switching tactics to let the virus infect a large swath of the population could create bad optics ahead of the national congress of the ruling Communist Party slated for later this year, where Xi Jinping is expected to try to extend his power.

5. What’s the cost to the rest of the world?

COVID Zero has sent ripples through the global supply chain. Outbreaks have led to temporary production halts at the China-based factories of top carmakers in the northern port city of Tianjin for people to undergo mass testing.

The month-long lockdown of Xi’an caused disruption and delays for leading chipmakers Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics. But abandoning the policy could cause far greater disruptions, at least temporarily, if workers were too sick to show up at work, given how much the global economy relies on China for everything from raw materials to finished consumer and industrial products.

6. What’s the endgame for China?

China has given no sign of backing away from its strategy of reacting forcibly to every flareup in the hope that it is quickly contained with few economic and social ramifications. While local lockdowns cause disruptions and spur complaints on social media, the strategy ensures people in the rest of the country can generally carry on with normal life.

One of China’s top COVID-19 advisers signaled in an August interview that the country would consider dropping the strategy when the “dividend” is gone. He also urged leaders to closely watch reopening trailblazers like the UK and Singapore to learn from their experiences.

Some experts think China’s strategy will eventually crumble as the virus becomes too transmissible to control. Another possibility is a new variant may emerge that’s mild enough for the government to relent without harming the population.

7. What’s the outlook for Hong Kong?

The financial hub and gateway to China has prioritised aligning its policy with the Chinese mainland in an effort to reopen the border. Successive outbreaks on both sides have kept that from happening for the past two years.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam has vowed to stick with COVID Zero as the city struggles to persuade some of its most vulnerable senior citizens to get vaccinated. Hong Kong lacks the resources to conduct mass testing and impose lockdowns the way China can, raising questions about whether it can tame Omicron.

The flagship newspaper for the Chinese Communist Party warned in February that any move by Hong Kong away from COVID Zero would severely damage the city’s development and health of its residents. A day later, a top Hong Kong government adviser said he thought the city could reopen its borders within a year.

Source: Bloomberg/az

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