China will ‘hold fast’ to zero-Covid, as central health officials cite winter surge fears

China’s Covid-control strategy is ‘completely correct’, health official says, while promising to adapt measures to changes in the virus

Public anger over the human cost of excessive Covid-19 curbs is on the rise, especially after a three-year-old died without access to medical care

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People queue for PCR tests in China’s southern city of Guangzhou, which is battling a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. Photo: Weibo

Published: 9:16pm, 5 Nov 2022Updated: 5:35pm, 6 Nov 2022

China will persist with “dynamic zero-Covid”, national health authorities said, despite rising public and local government pressure to move on from the costly and disruptive policy.

But officials also pledged to avoid excessive interruptions to public life, and to refine the approach as the pattern of the disease changed.

“Winter will see a new wave of Covid-19 globally. In China, coronavirus outbreaks have rebounded in some parts of the country as the risks of flu grow,” Hu Xiang, an official from the National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention, said in Beijing on Saturday.

“We will hold fast to ‘dynamic zero-Covid’ and continue to improve control measures to adapt to changes in the virus.

“Practice has proved that our control strategy and strategic measures are completely correct, most economical and effective,” she said when asked at a press conference if the relaxation of coronavirus curbs in some parts of the country signalled subtle changes in implementation of the policy.

The subtle shifts, such as the decision by some local governments to drop to tracking requirements, follow months of analysts’ predictions that zero-Covid restrictions might be relaxed after the politically sensitive 20th Communist Party congress, which ended two weeks ago.

This has further fuelled hopes of the imminent easing of a policy that has severely disrupted economic and social activities across the country.