Covid-19: From the border town of Ruili to Shanghai Disney, China insists on fighting the epidemic with an iron fist but faces more challenges-BBC News

This scene in Disneyland seems to be just an episode in China’s new crown epidemic prevention war. Shanghai has even been praised by the Internet for its precise detection range control. But on a broader scale, the Chinese government’s insistence on the iron-handed policy of “clearing zeros” has caused many complaints.

In Ruili, a small city on the southwestern border of China, strict epidemic prevention measures have been taken for seven consecutive months, including three lockdowns. A local resident told the BBC that most shops on Ruili Street had closed, and many people had fled. And because she has no income for several months, her family has been exhausted.

Since China has roughly controlled the Wuhan epidemic in May 2020, it has continued to adopt a “zero-clearing” policy to extinguish every cluster of outbreaks through lockdowns, large-scale nucleic acid testing, and continuous isolation and medical observation of close contacts. And close the door to overseas tourists.

This policy has achieved remarkable results. Since the outbreak of the Wuhan epidemic, the total number of infections reported by the authorities so far has been less than 100,000, and the death toll has been less than 4,700. For a country of 1.4 billion people, the infection rate is much smaller than most Western countries.

However, the emergence of the Delta variant virus challenges confidence in such a strict defense strategy. Since the second half of this year, sporadic epidemics have broken out in China one after another. The blow to people’s lives and production and other negative impacts caused by the “zero-clearing” policy are being increasingly scrutinized and aroused fierce debate on the Internet. In particular, many people say that most areas are far from being able to achieve relatively accurate and humanized epidemic prevention like Shanghai.

Ruili, a small city in Yunnan, China, is a typical case.

On October 28, an article entitled “Ruili Needs the Care of the Motherland” written by Dai Rongli, the former deputy mayor of Ruili, quickly spread on social media. The article stated that the epidemic “squeezed the last gleam of life in the city”, and the long-term lockdown of the city “formed a deadlock in the development of this city”.

When this article was published, Chinese social media was flooded with messages asking for help from local people in Ruili. On October 26, a Ruili man committed suicide by jumping off a building in a hotel and was later rescued. Although the authorities stated that the man’s suicide had nothing to do with the epidemic, many netizens believed that the suicide incident was inextricably linked to the tremendous pressure of epidemic prevention.

“Every day is suffering, I have never been so desperate,” said a 28-year-old Ruili resident. The resident, who requested anonymity, said that she was doing business in Ruili but had no income for several months.

“Since the beginning of this year, the city has been closed three times. Nucleic acid tests have been done sixty to seventy times, and a certificate must be issued even if they leave the community… But this is nothing. There are no necessities, even clean water, and it’s all about fighting the epidemic in an exercise style.”

Since the local city was closed for epidemic prevention due to the discovery of 9 confirmed cases of the new crown virus at the end of March this year, this city with a population of less than 300,000 has adopted strict epidemic prevention measures for seven consecutive months. Schools, movie theaters and other entertainment venues continue to be closed, and restaurants can only be taken out. The local pillar industry jewellery trading has also been suspended.

Every time there are new cases, the epidemic prevention measures are further upgraded. For example, on July 4, after 3 local confirmed cases appeared in Ruili, the government quickly cut off all channels leaving Ruili, and all citizens were required to stay at home. Except for supermarkets, markets, hospitals and pharmacies, all other business premises are closed.

The home quarantine ended on July 25, but a week later, due to the discovery of two confirmed cases in the local area, Ruili closed the city again. To this day, the local area still strictly implements the “non-necessary not to leave Switzerland” policy. Residents need to provide a negative nucleic acid test within 7 days to enter public places.

Health information media “Eight Point Health News” reported that due to the closure of the farmer’s market, buying and selling vegetables can only be carried out in the “black market” before the urban management goes to work. In the middle of the night, the merchant urged customers “If the situation is not right, you can take the dishes first and pay later.”

It is not easy to leave Ruili. According to the current policy, if you want to leave Ruili, in addition to the four situations of work, illness, school, and bereavement, each community or village has only 2 places per day, and needs to be quarantined for 7 days at your own expense. Those who have saved up are worse off.

“We are like being forgotten. The epidemic is terrible, but it feels like no one really cares about our life or death,” said the aforementioned Ruili resident.

After Dai Rongli’s “Letter for Help” became popular on the Internet, Ruili’s current mayor Shang Labian refuted this statement. He stated that the content in the article “represents only individuals” and “is some information from four or five years ago”, and said that Ruili “does not need assistance for the time being.”

After the public opinion further fermented, the local government changed its tone. Deputy Mayor Yang Mou admitted that “the epidemic has severely affected the production and life of the people” and said that assistance will be given to people in need. But he emphasized at the press conference, “It is gratifying that there has been no spread of the epidemic so far.”

“If the Ruili epidemic is not completely cleared in one day, there is a risk of spreading. For this reason, we need to continue to adhere to a strict policy of leaving Switzerland to ensure that the epidemic is not spread to the outside and will not affect the overall situation of epidemic prevention and control in the province and the whole country,” he said.

Ruili’s story is not an isolated case in China. In mid-October, after two couples traveling from Shanghai to the western city of Xi’an were tested positive for the new crown virus, more than ten provinces and autonomous regions in China, including the capital Beijing, discovered cases of infection related to the chain of transmission of tour groups. Dozens of cities quickly began to fight the epidemic.

Gansu Province, which relies heavily on tourism, announced the closure of all tourist attractions, cinemas and other entertainment venues in the province. Lanzhou, the capital of the province with a population of 4 million, announced the closure of the city. The residential quarters are under closed management and dozens of tourist groups total more than 400. Foreign tourists are stranded locally.

After a confirmed case was discovered in Jianshan County, Jiangxi Province, the local traffic police adjusted all traffic lights in the county to red lights to “reduce the flow of people and vehicles,” and vehicles running red lights were punished in accordance with regulations.

In the city of Heihe in northeastern China, the authorities uniformly changed the health codes of residents of the city to yellow, which means that some Heihe residents cannot enter public places or take public transportation even if they have lived in other places for a long time.

These all-purpose anti-epidemic measures have aroused criticism from some experts. Jin Dongyan, a professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, believes that such measures are “unscientific.”

“You have to at least judge how dangerous it is, how high the risk of it causing a major outbreak, and if its pathogenicity has been reduced, of course, some prevention and control measures need to be relaxed. It is often because of a case that the closure of the city is not to protect the people. The life and health of people’s lives are laboring for the people and wealth,” Jin Dongyan told the BBC in Chinese.

Previously, Ruili and many other places have been suspended or accountable for local government officials due to the outbreak of the epidemic. Jin Dongyan said that this may cause more local officials to adopt “excessive defense” for fear of making mistakes.

But more and more people are beginning to complain on social media about the inconvenience brought to life by the control measures. Some Beijing residents said that they had gone on business trips to an area where there was no epidemic, but they could not buy tickets on the return trip back to Beijing and could only stay there. Others who cannot return to Beijing are required to be quarantined locally because Beijing is also an epidemic area.

On Tuesday (November 2), the Beijing Municipal Government apologized to those who were “injured”. An official explained that the authorities currently restrict ticket purchases to people who have been to the county where more than one case of the new crown virus has been infected within 14 days, even if they are citizens of Beijing. People who have “temporal and spatial trajectory associations” with confirmed cases are also restricted from buying tickets. The authorities promised to improve the accuracy of control.

China’s “zero clearing” policy has also exerted an influence on Hong Kong. Since the beginning of this year, this international financial city has turned to seek “zero” to keep pace with mainland China. But business organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce and the European Union Chamber of Commerce, said that more stringent customs measures would greatly weaken Hong Kong’s function as an international financial center.

As countries around the world are reopening, China’s continued strict control is separating it from the practices of other countries. Australia and New Zealand, which have also adopted the “zero-clearing” policy, have already loosened control, and South Korea, Japan, and Singapore have also loosened control measures. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that commercial stagnation, economic losses and border blockades have brought psychological and emotional pressure to the people.

Vietnam, once regarded as a “model for fighting the epidemic,” changed its “zero-clearing” strategy after its GDP hit a new low in the third quarter and relaxed its three-month blockade on Ho Chi Minh City in October.

For China, the high social cost of maintaining the “zero-clearing” policy has also sparked domestic debate. The National Bureau of Statistics of China announced in October that the country’s third-quarter GDP growth rate “breaking 5” to 4.9% year-on-year, which was 3 percentage points slower than the second quarter growth rate, which was worse than expected. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, “the domestic economic recovery is still unstable and uneven.”

However, analysts believe that there are many reasons why China is unwilling to let go of control, including the Chinese government’s consistent mentality of maintaining stability, strong public concerns, and the upcoming Winter Olympics, which is more dependent on international tourists and imports and exports than some. As a trading country, the Chinese government does not seem to be in a hurry to open its doors.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University in Shanghai, declared in July this year that China should consider “coexisting with the virus.” He was immediately criticized by many netizens and even insulted as a “Western running dog.” Opponents claim that “clearing” can maximize the protection of people’s lives and health, while “foreign capitalist societies are disregarding people’s lives”.

Jin Dongyan believes that China has succeeded in controlling the epidemic in Wuhan, but it cannot “lie on its laurels”, but must adjust its policies according to changes in the situation and the current characteristics of the spread of the disease.

“Under the vaccine, the pathogenicity and harmfulness of the new crown are getting closer and closer to the flu and the common cold. Influenza occurs every year, and the coronavirus cold also occurs all the year round. We never said that the city will be closed because of this thing. Don’t let people move around,” Jin Dongyan said. “This is to hit mosquitoes with a cannon.”

Some scholars believe that there are more realistic reasons for China’s stringent epidemic prevention measures. Zhang Jun, an assistant professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong, said that China’s per capita medical resources are less than many developed countries. The more serious problem is that a large number of medical resources are concentrated in a few large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The spread of the epidemic is overwhelmed.

“Excessive epidemic prevention is a matter of perspective to a considerable extent,” Zhang Jun told the BBC. “For Chinese nationals, since last fall, most people have been able to move relatively freely within the country. At the same time, nationals of many other countries may still be trapped in their homes because of the blockade.”

But there are also some signs that China is preparing for the future. The authorities are accelerating the promotion of booster vaccine injections across the country. People who have reached the age of 18 and have been vaccinated with the second vaccine for half a year can now receive a third booster injection.

Since the beginning of this year, officials have advocated universal vaccination. Statistics show that the cumulative number of vaccination in China has exceeded 2 billion doses, and nearly 890 million people have completed the entire vaccination process, which is equivalent to more than 60% of the country’s population has completed the vaccination.

Gao Fu, director of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, once euphemistically stated in an October interview that when the vaccination reaches a certain level, China may adjust its strategy.

“We will reach more than 85% (vaccination rate) as soon as possible by the beginning of 2022… If by that time, the world is open and the fatality rate drops so low, why don’t we open it?” Gao Fu said.