[ SCMP ] China sticks with zero Covid-19 approach, leaving borders closed for now
Beijing is set to stick to its zero-tolerance Covid-19 strategy, in a sign that mainland China’s borders will not be opening to Hong Kong or the outside world any time soon.
While some experts – including leading epidemiologist Zhang Wenhong, known as “China’s Dr Fauci” – are suggesting the country will need to live with the novel coronavirus, Beijing has doubled down on its elimination approach in the face of an outbreak of the more transmissible Delta variant.
China’s strategy is also a consequence of its fragile public health infrastructure. There are just 3.43 intensive care unit (ICU) beds per 100,000 people, according to survey data from the Chinese Society of Critical Care Medicine. This compares to 34.2 ICU beds per 100,000 people in the US, as outlined in a paper by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information in Maryland.
“Surprisingly, some of our experts also talked about the amazing power of the Delta strain, suggesting that the country consider the strategy of ‘long-term coexistence with the virus’ and ‘learn to coexist with the virus’,” Gao wrote.
“Isn’t it a contradiction in these experts’ opinions that they both preach the serious threat of the Delta virus and advocate ‘long-term coexistence with the virus’?”
Gao also rejected the view held by Zhang and other experts that China’s interactions with the outside world had to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“The author believes that the interactions between China and the world must be healthy and safe, in line with national and people’s interests, not blind interactions, let alone reckless interactions. At present, whether my country can achieve normal interactions with the world does not lie in domestic epidemic control, but in the international epidemic situation,” he wrote
Gao accused the US and Britain of “inducing” more vulnerable developing countries to adopt laxer Covid-19 measures and took aim at their political systems.
“[The relaxation of Covid-19 measures] is an error in decision-making … caused by the defects of the political systems of Britain, the United States and other countries, and it is also an inevitable result of advocating individualistic values,” he said.
