On March 28, in a seemingly synchronised move, a number of leading Chinese media outlets – including the People’s Daily, Xinhua, China Daily, and the China Youth Daily – simultaneously ran commentaries blasting Krugman and his column.

A city divided, as China’s financial hub Shanghai goes into lockdown

Chinese commentators accused Krugman of harbouring an ulterior motive and colluding with anti-China forces to discredit Beijing’s Covid-19 policy and attack its political system. One analyst questioned Krugman’s conscience while another urged him to focus on what he did best – economics.

Beijing may have focused its wrath on Krugman but his views on China’s pandemic policy are widely representative of the sentiment in the West at a time when most of the world has chosen to adopt the option of living with the coronavirus and have proceeded to open up.

02:51

Shanghai imposes phased lockdowns as daily Covid infection numbers surge beyond 3,000

Shanghai imposes phased lockdowns as daily Covid infection numbers surge beyond 3,000

As China has doubled down on the opposite path, it is facing another major test following its unprecedented 76-day lockdown of Wuhan where the coronavirus outbreak first started in late 2019.

Since then, through a combination of border closures, snap lockdowns, vigorous contact tracing and mandatory mass testing, China has succeeded in bringing the pandemic under control and has become the first major world economy to bounce back.

Hong Kong needs a Covid-19 command centre fast – or risk losing to Singapore

For much of the past two years, Beijing has cited its pandemic success as an institutional strength of the autocratic rule vs “chaos” in democratic countries in the West, and has been keen to hold up its governance model as a sign of its rising power while its overall relationship with the West has worsened.

But the latest Omicron outbreak has presented a particularly acute problem as it spreads far more quickly than any other Covid-19 variant, even as for most people, the symptoms have been ranging from mild to none, making it harder to detect and trace.

Economic costs and people’s dissatisfaction have become greater as Beijing has again resorted to locking down a number of major cities including Shenzhen and Shanghai, the country’s key manufacturing and financial hubs, adding more headwinds for China’s economy this year.

The Chinese leadership has staked too much on its zero-Covid policy to back down.

For political reasons and national pride, China has not yet approved the emergency use of imported mRNA vaccines and seems to have focused upon developing its own mRNA vaccines over the past year, which have not yet borne fruit.

About 89 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion population have received two shots and nearly 40 per cent of them have received boosters – all of domestically-made vaccines.

Allowing imports and manufacturing of foreign mRNA vaccines would further boost the vaccination drive at home and boost public confidence, in part because mixing different vaccines has proved more effective.

Shanghai authorities admit being ill prepared for latest Covid-19 wave

To dispel potential disagreements over who should first get mRNA vaccines, the government could give priority to frontline medical workers and vulnerable groups, like the elderly.

Contrary to Krugman’s speculation that low vaccination rates among the elderly were due to distrust of the government, reluctance of older people has more to do with the fact they have been mostly staying indoors and did not feel the need to receive jabs because of low infection numbers. But the more infectious variant could make them more receptive. In addition, there has long been lobbying for mRNA vaccines among China-based expats. The approval would ease their concerns and boost their confidence.

To cope with the onslaught of the latest variant, China has started to import Pfizer’s Covid-19 treatment pill Paxlovid and five Chinese companies have been licensed to produce generic versions of Pfizer’s oral pills. That is welcome news but China should further expand imports while waiting for domestic production to come on stream.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, China’s leadership preached that safeguarding people’s lives and health was its top priority. That calls for the government to put aside any narrow-minded political and nationalistic reasons it has, and to do whatever possible to contain the spread of the virus, including using foreign-made vaccines and drugs.

Meanwhile, Beijing should also learn from Hong Kong and elsewhere to expand the use of self-test kits as a major means to boost testing capacity. China is very late to the method as it only allowed antigen self-test kits for the public on March 11 on a very limited basis. But its current testing method, which requires residents to line up in open spaces and be screened by teams of medical personnel, has consumed time and resources.

Last but not least, to lessen strains on the public healthcare system, China has embarked on a nationwide spree of constructing makeshift field hospitals to accommodate and quarantine patients with less severe symptoms. China already has 89 temporary hospitals in operation or under construction.

02:29

Leishenshan hospital at epicentre of China’s coronavirus outbreak closes its first inpatient ward

Leishenshan hospital at epicentre of China’s coronavirus outbreak closes its first inpatient ward

There are at least twice as many in the planning stage. Some are converted from stadiums or school buildings but many have been built from scratch with the design, specifications, and equipment suitable for treating infectious diseases like a normal hospital. It would be a huge waste to shut them down once infections wane, just like the 1400-bed Leishenshan hospital in Wuhan, which costs an estimated 1.5 billion yuan (US$236 million). So far, only the city of Zhuhai is believed to have built a coronavirus-driven emergency hospital for long-term use.

Time may be a critical factor but China may gain long-term and greater benefits by planning to use some of those makeshift hospitals long term, like Zhuhai did.

Wang Xiangwei is a former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper