‘Zero Covid-19’ strategy could isolate China for years

While most of the world is learning to live with covid-19, China is struggling to eliminate the virus in the long term, an approach that could isolate the world’s second-largest economy for years to come.

This month the the delta variant has appeared in more than half of China’s 31 provinces despite strict border controls, sparking another round of selective closures, travel restrictions and massive testing across the country. Si bien el brote es el más extendido en China desde el inicial en Wuhan el año pasado, the Organización Mundial de la Salud dijo que los casos totales el viernes pasado fueron de 141, alrededor del 0.01% de las nuevas infecciones ese día en United States.

the Tough measures to control a relatively low number of cases in a country with one of the highest vaccination rates show how politically committed the Communist Party has become to achieving zero COVID-19 infections. Chinese authorities are increasingly touting their success in containing the virus as an ideological and moral victory over the United States and other countries that now treat COVID-19 as endemic.

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In the short term, Chinese authorities are urged to maintain tight controls until at least next year: they don’t want a major epidemic to derail the Winter Olympics or tarnish a party congress taking place. every five years and in which hopes that President Xi Jinping will get a third term. However, the problem is the increasing economic and political costs of maintaining this policy indefinitely, especially since the virus generates new variants that can more easily overcome the restrictions.

“China will have to change its containment strategy sooner or later – zero covid can be reached for a while, but not forever, because the virus is coming before you know it,” said Chen Zhengming, professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford. “My concern is that they will not actively seek to change tactics as the zero covid strategy has taken root in the mindset.”

Currently, it is almost taboo in China to offer a different approach. In a comment posted over the weekend by a health news app run by the official People’s Daily newspaper, former health minister Gao Qiang called for tougher measures to prevent the virus from entering. China while criticizing the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries for relaxing the precautions. too early.

“The exclusive reliance on vaccination and the pursuit of so-called ‘viral coexistence’ has led to a resurgence of the virus,” he wrote. “This is a misstep in the decisions on covid caused by deficiencies in its political mechanism and the result of the defense of individualism.”

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After the publication of Gao’s article, Chinese social media users started attacking Zhang Wenhong, director of infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai, who had previously asked the Chinese authorities to find “the wisdom to coexist with the virus in the long term ”.

China is not the only country to have tried to eradicate the virus. Singapore, Australia and New Zealand also adhere to the so-called zero covid strategy. But as the rest of the world opens its doors and the prospect of a global elimination narrows, others are starting to step away from a series of plays that have prevented deaths but left the country isolated and obsessed with the number of cases.

China’s commitment to zero covid strategy has implications for investors, many of whom are reeling from Xi’s massive crackdown on tech companies that at one point wiped $ 1.5 trillion from Chinese stocks. Economic risks are mounting in the second half of the year and growth is expected to slow as inflationary pressures resume. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. lowered their growth forecasts for China this month due to measures taken by Beijing to combat the virus.