As China’s new cases surge, it must not let fear hijack its Covid-19 policy
- For China, targeted lockdowns and mass testing are better than having to live with the coronavirus at the moment
- But excessive fear of Covid-19 could make it difficult to dial down pandemic-related restrictions in future
Almost two years after China achieved victory in eradicating Covid-19 in Wuhan, the country surprised the world again this week by imposing a lockdown in Shenzhen and restricting travel in Shanghai, two of its most important economic hubs.
The message is clear: China is not yet ready to live with Covid-19.
The risks of widespread infections and deaths among unvaccinated senior citizens – as shown in Hong Kong in the last couple of weeks – are simply too high for the country to bear.
It is much safer, and probably more popular, for China to do what it has done well in the last two years. Targeted lockdowns and mass testing are better than having to live with the coronavirus, even though most other countries are learning to accept Covid-19 as part of everyday life.
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Given China’s track record, the country may well be able to contain the current wave of infections. By controlling the outbreak, China can buy time to roll out booster vaccines for vulnerable groups – another dear lesson that the mainland has learned from Hong Kong. In a sense, China is protecting human lives at the cost of short-term economic development.
Still, China’s “dynamic zero” strategy has an unhealthy tendency of amplifying fear, which increases reluctance to ease pandemic-related restrictions.
This is a bit like China’s infamous one-child policy. In hindsight, it is probably fair to say that the birth restrictions were implemented too long and too harshly. Part of the reason was that people feared any relaxation of the policy would lead to a disaster.
Some state demographic researchers even argued in the early 2010s that the country’s birth rate could run out of control if every couple was allowed to have two kids. That fear, of course, could not have been more wrong.
Fear is driving every step of China’s dynamic zero policy. Local officials have become extremely nervous. Most tend to go the extra mile to implement lockdowns because their careers could be at stake if positive cases slipped through the cracks under their watch.
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It is possible that policymakers fear that China could suffer millions of Covid-related deaths – a human toll that neither the government nor the public could tolerate. But such a prediction may have underestimated the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines and the capability of the country’s health care system.
If China does not want to stick to its zero-tolerance approach forever, it has to overcome excessive fear of the virus.
