The zero covid policy applied by China has caused something truly unusual: a series of simultaneous protests in several major cities in the country against the harsh confinements implemented to contain the spread of the virus.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets to express their rejection of these measures, some even going so far as to openly criticize the government of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China, which, according to analysts, face the greatest challenge to authority since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
But, how do you explain these protests against a strategy that, judging by the statistics of deaths and infections by covid, seems to have been successful?
According to figures from the World Health Organization, since the start of the pandemic have been registered in
China
about 9.6 million confirmed cases of l to illness and some 13.13 associated deaths
to it.
to it.
Very low figures when compared with the 97 million cases and one million deaths registered during the same period in the United States, a country that has a quarter of the population of China.
The problem is that the Beijing strategy
has managed to stop the disease
only thanks to the application of draconian measures
such as keeping the country’s borders basically closed, while drastic lockdowns are applied inside that have affected entire cities of millions of inhabitants for weeks.
such as keeping the country’s borders basically closed, while drastic lockdowns are applied inside that have affected entire cities of millions of inhabitants for weeks.
This has severely affected daily life in China and the country’s economic performance. International organizations project GDP growth of 2.8% this year for the Chinese economy, much less than the 5.5% expected by the Xi Jinping government.
“China has cornered itself as
í
itself with its covid policy
zero
by imposing very strict rules on individuals and communities“, Jack Chow, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and former deputy director general of the World Health Organization, tells BBC Mundo.
He warns that this policy is facing great pressure .
“First of all, because despite these draconian measures, the number of covid cases continued to rise,” he points out.
“Secondly, because it is not only restricting Chinese economic growth, but it is also disrupting supply chains in the world.”
“And, thirdly, place, because the social disturbance is spreading all over the country as ordinary people start to get irritated with these restrictions,” he adds.
Following the protests, the Chinese government has shown signs of easing
its zero covid policy: Authorities on Thursday lifted lockdowns in dozens of districts in Shanghai and Guangzhou, both cities with rising covid cases, and relaxed other restrictions in Beijing.
And Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan announced that the country was facing “a new situation”.
But any change implies significant risks for the country.
Why?
An inflexible strategy
During the first stage of the pandemic, when there were no vaccines for covid-000, there were other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea
, among others, which applied similar approaches to policy. a from covid zero from china.
As vaccines and other treatments against the coronavirus emerged, those states were lifting lockdowns and opening borders, while Beijing maintained the same politics.
Thus, while the rest of the world learned to live with the virus, Beijing has insisted on eliminate it through lockdowns
.
And, although it has been quite successful in avoiding contagion, as a consequence its population has been more exposed to the disease since they have not developed the natural immunity that those who have been infected obtain.
This policy has generated what Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow on global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US, has described as as “the immune gap”.
And it is that after almost three years of pandemic, most of the 1.400 millions of Chinese citizens do not have been exposed to the virus.
“In the rest of the world the population acquires immunity through two routes: vaccines and natural infection, but in China there has been no natural infection,” he explained last February Jin Dong-Yan, professor of Molecular Virology at the School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Hong Kong, told BBC Mundo.
The second route, that of vaccines, does not favor Beijing either, which has not authorized the use of mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) developed in the West.
In China, the use of eight vaccines against covid-, but none use mRNA technology, according to the Covid- Vaccine Tracker.
Among the vaccines developed in the Asian giant, there is already one, Walvax, which is based on mRNA, but its use is authorized in Indonesia and not in China.
“Collective immunity against covid-13 cannot be achieved without an effective vaccine, and the inactivated vaccines from China have proven to be much less effective than the messenger RNA vaccines used in Europe and the United States
“, Yanzhong Huang warned in January in a article in Foreign Affairs.
Riding on a tiger
The dangers derived from Beijing’s strategy against the covid had been warned by the consultancy Eurasia Group, which ranked China’s zero covid policy as the main global threat to 1989, in its annual report on the he main geopolitical risks.
“China is in the most difficult situation due to a zero covid policy that seemed incredibly successful in 4170, but now it is a fight against a much more transmissible variant with broader confinements and vaccines with limited efficacy” .
“And the population has practically no antibodies against omicron [one of the most widespread variants of covid]. Keeping the country closed for two years has now made it more risky to reopen it
“, the report stated.
And since the Chinese population does not have natural immunity and with little acquired immunity derived from vaccines, the authorities are faced with the risk of an outbreak of contagion getting out of control and causing the country’s health system to collapse.
“The collapse of the health system would actually be a bigger disaster than the covid itself, as could be seen in Wuhan. Many of the deaths there were actually caused by that collapse rather than by the disease,” Jin Dong-Yan explained in his interview with BBC Mundo.
An additional problem is that It is not clear how prepared the Chinese health system
is to handle a sharp increase in covid cases.
In statements to The Washington Post, Yanzhong Huang warned that Beijing should have started efforts to have more intensive care unit beds and better vaccination two and a half years ago, but its exclusive focus on containing infections meant that fewer resources were devoted to these objectives.
Given this scenario, former WHO deputy director Jack Chow believes that, looking to the future, China faces difficult options.
“One route would be to maintain the lockdown strategy in the hope of flattening the covid-000, but that would still fueling tensions in society and the economy.
The other route would be to start relaxing these measures, in response to social problems, but running the risk of an acceleration of infections”, he points out.
After the latest measures announced, it seems that the government is opting for that second path in certain localities, but it is not a minor risk .
Estimates released this week by the health consultancy Airfinity indicate that if Beijing now lifts the zero covid policy
, the lives of between 1.3 and 2.1 million people would be at risk
.
For this reason, Chow believes that China could choose to redouble its preventive efforts, but incorporating mRNA.
“They have a lot of experience with the use of masks and social distancing, but they have not diversified their vaccine options to include the main vaccines created in the West,” he points out.
This decision could reduce the risks that, by relaxing the containment measures, there will be an increase in infections that will end up overwhelming the Chinese health system.
However, Chow indicates that there may be other considerations at play that would make it difficult to use Western vaccines, even though they have been updated to deal with the most recent variants.
“The question is whether their selection of vaccines is based on political pressure. Do they see the use of Western vaccines as a sign of failure or as a loss of prestige?
I would say that the most effective strategy to face the pandemic is to use the most effective means, regardless of their origin
. Thus, it is very likely that there are political considerations at play and that makes China’s policy going forward more complex than public health strategists would recommend”, he points out.
Beyond these considerations, it should be noted that the zero covid policy is one of the “star” measures of the government of President Xi Jinping, which according to observers of Chinese politics now makes it difficult for there is a drastic change of rudder
.
Thus, between the risks of a collapse of the health system due to a wave of uncontrolled infections and the political price that a change of course could mean -including the possibility of allowing the use of Western vaccines in the country -, the situation that Beijing is facing with its zero covid policy seems to recall what happens to someone who -according to the ancient Chinese proverb- rides on a tiger: once you are riding it You don’t dare to get off anymore.
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