Coronavirus: time to ‘lie flat’? Divides emerge on Chinese internet about country’s path out of Covid-19

The Chinese internet has become a centre of a debate about the efficacy of widespread lockdowns as officials try to maintain a “dynamic zero-Covid” policy amid a worsening Covid-19 pandemic driven by the Omicron variant. To achieve the policies, cities across China have spent the past two years implementing rolling lockdowns, mass testing, rigid quarantine rules and nearly-closed national borders. However, as Omicron spreads across China with nearly 23,000 cases reported on Wednesday, the virus is straining the system as widespread lockdowns become more common. Over the past two weeks, the debate came to a head as Shanghai, China’s largest city, imposed a strict two-part lockdown on March 28 that was meant to be temporary but has become indefinite as the case numbers surge. An article written by Wang Jie that challenged the authorities’ coronavirus prevention policy went viral on WeChat last weekend. He asked, “Covid is no worse than the flu, so what are we so afraid of?” He pointed to official stats that claim nobody has died from Covid-19 in Shanghai, and no serious cases have been recorded despite the city recording over 114,000 cases since March 1. “In this wave of Covid-19 in Shanghai, almost 100 per cent of the infected people have recovered on their own in about 10 days without taking medicine or receiving injections,” Wang wrote. He argued that “Shanghai’s medical resources have been drained” because of the volume of paramedics that have been shifted to Covid-related jobs. “One anecdote claimed that some exhausted doctors were not treating seriously-ill patients but were taking care of coronavirus patients who are energetic and are playing with their phones.” The central government has been defending the strategy, saying it is based on the doctrine of “People First, Life First”, which contended that allowing the virus to spread would result in significant deaths in China. Authorities have trumpeted President Xi Jinping’s phrase of “persistence is victory” to encourage people to stay the course. According to What’s On Weibo, a website that tracks trends on the social media platform, the website has been trying to promote positive or inspiring stories to improve morale. Despite criticisms from some circles, another group of people believe that China cannot afford to adopt the “living with the virus” strategy and should continue to try and eradicate the coronavirus. “Although a high percentage of the mainland’s population received the Covid vaccination, there are still tens of millions of people who have not, many of whom are elderly or have underlying diseases. So, do we just let them die?” said Cindy Shen, a white-collar worker in Shanghai. “China can choose to ‘lie flat’ any time,” she said, referring to the slang term that means doing the bare minimum in a job. “It’s easy to do that. But once we open the border and give up the virus elimination policy, our medical system will be overwhelmed immediately.” Besides the concern over serious cases and deaths from the coronavirus, many mainland residents are worried about potential symptoms of an infection. An article claiming that the disease will result in 200 symptoms, like the loss of taste and smell, worsening lung functions, impotence and brain damage, has been popular on the mainland. In a viral video earlier this week, a man living in Hong Kong said he had not recovered his loss of taste a month after he recovered from getting the Omicron variant. While the claims in the video are unverified, they are in line with a study from Nature that found 84 per cent of people recover their loss of taste in about a month and 95 per cent within six months. Those studies were published in January 2021, before Omicron became widespread. Li Tong, an infectious disease expert from Beijing Youan Hospital, told government mouthpiece People’s Daily that the man’s taste loss was an individual case, while the symptom would be self-cured as time goes by. Whether they agree with the measures, many residents are reacting to the reality that they have been stuck in lengthy lockdowns, and their stresses are less about catching Covid-19 but about finding basic necessities. A serious concern is a daily scramble for fresh food from online platforms. “When I check the apps, all of the vegetable shops are all sold out, making me as frustrated as an African lion that failed while hunting,” a resident surnamed Shi wrote on WeChat. A viral video from Shanghai showed a drone scolding people who had started yelling protests from their windows. In a separate video, a large group of migrant workers in Langfang, Hebei, in northern China, confronted several Covid-prevention staffers who were dressed in hazmat suits, saying: “We want to end the lockdown. Without money, we are going to starve.”