The more the days pass, the more the immense effort of the Chinese authorities to contain (and possibly eliminate) the contagions of the omicron variant, which since the beginning of March in Shanghai have started to rise again, a desperate battle appears with potentially disastrous consequences for the economy and for the global economy (the impact on the supply chain, already in crisis, is of great concern).
Forcing 26 million people into their homes without warning (originally the plan was to close half the city for five days and the other half for the next five) leaving many without food or medicine; thoroughly test the entire citizenry several times by isolating asymptomatic positives (the vast majority) and their closest contacts in quarantine facilities and hospitalizing covid patients in hospitals where those suffering from other pathologies are not admitted; separate young children and infected parents (rule canceled after the controversy aroused, “but now, in a country that would like to encourage births, the damage is done”, writes Maria Siow in the South China Morning Post); and finally, literally blocking the country’s economic capital is a strategy that brings the mind back to where it all began, in Wuhan and other Chinese regions in early 2020.
Then the drastic measures put in place proved to be salvific, the country managed to overcome the worst phase of the pandemic and restart activities in a very short time, recovering enviable growth rates while Europe and the United States were grappling with the death count and lockdown.
A matter of image
Today, however, things have changed, the new variants are more contagious but less dangerous, there are vaccines and a large part of the world has started living with the virus. But China, along with a few others, is resisting, with a stubbornness that seems increasingly irrational. The suspicion is that in part there is a question of image and coherence: continuing with the strategy that so far had proved successful seems to be the only possible option for Beijing and for President Xi Jinping, who in mid-March on TV invited the officials to “swiftly bring new outbreaks under control”. Yet recently there had been some timid adjustments that foreshadowed a possible transition towards a more sustainable management of the pandemic, if not towards coexistence with covid: distribution of do-it-yourself tests, targeted and no longer generalized isolation, modification of criteria for hospitalization. However, “if we stop all containment measures now, it means that the efforts made so far have been useless,” a senior National Health Commission official replied at the end of March to a reporter who asked why China did not treat COVID. as an endemic disease.
Experts, writes Nikkei Asia, who also reported the preceding quotation mark, are divided on the possible costs of this rigidity. Some argue that it will lead to heavy economic losses, others instead that drastic measures will ensure industrial stability, as well as save lives (it must be said, however, that so far the new wave, in the face of almost 28 thousand new positive cases April in the city, of which 2,500 symptomatic, did not register any deaths). According to recent estimates by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, continuing with the lockdowns the country will lose 3.1 per cent of GDP per month, “clearly a higher cost than that recorded in other countries”.
So why is Beijing continuing on this line? Vaccines are a crucial issue: according to official data, 88 percent of the country’s population is vaccinated, but among the vulnerable elderly the percentage drops to 55 percent. This is because the vaccination campaign gave priority to the active population (18-59 years), partly due to the lack of clinical studies on other age groups. And, above all, despite a large part of the population being vaccinated, the level of immunization is low, as Chinese vaccines are less effective. All this, together with the shortcomings of the health system, partly explains China’s difficulty in changing strategy.
The problem is that the population is exasperated and in particular struggles to understand why asymptomatic positives are transferred to quarantine centers where they must live in conditions of promiscuity and without compliance with anti-contagion regulations. “The way in which the Chinese see the covid is changing,” writes the Economist, and the citizens no longer trust the party, but the authorities show no sign of wanting to change the line. The state media have confirmed in recent days that the “zero covid” policy must be maintained. All this happens in a crucial year for Xi Jinping, who will be reconfirmed for an unprecedented third term at the October Communist Party congress. And for him it is essential to arrive there with a strong consensus and a healthy country.