Zero-COVID boost in China – Marketplace

China will reopen its borders this month, nearly three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials announced at the end of December that they intend to remove mandatory quarantines for everyone, including incoming travelers, from next Sunday.

It’s part of the pivot away from the country’s stern ‘zero-COVID’ policy, which has had a whiplash effect on businesses and workers.

Zero-COVID has been effective. First of all.

That’s how Chinese factories were able to get back to work, just as the United States and much of the world went into lockdown in the spring of 2020. Then came the less deadly, but more contagious omicron strain.

For 61 days this spring, I couldn’t leave my Shanghai home unless I heard a melody blare from a megaphone outside my window asking me to pick up food handouts or take another COVID PCR test. Some buildings have been barricaded. Usual access to food and medicine has been reduced.

1,500 kilometers south of Guangzhou, Helen Su feared her city would be hit by a Shanghai-style lockdown.

I bought a lot of food, like instant noodles. My refrigerator was always full,” recalls Su. She has since stopped, “but I still have enough food to last me for more than 10 days”.

She said she and her colleagues were more worried about the COVID restrictions than the virus itself.

The Chinese government says the measures have saved lives, but when it comes to vaccinating the elderly, it hasn’t pushed too hard. Only 40% of people over 80 had their third injection, which is necessary to prevent a COVID infection from becoming a serious illness. China recently approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine; it is more effective than vaccines made in China but is only available to German nationals.

Su said her mother had underlying health conditions and feared the Chinese vaccine would make them worse. Her mother consulted her doctor, who advised her not to take the vaccine.

Instead, China’s zero COVID policy relied on relentless testing. In Shanghai, most sites required a negative PCR test every 72 hours, while in the southern city of Shenzhen it was 24 to 48 hours. A negative PCR test kept residents’ health codes green. These codes were scanned when people boarded a subway or bus and entered buildings or even public restrooms.

If a case of COVID was discovered at a business, anyone who had been scanned could see their health code turn red and be forced to self-quarantine along with their contacts.

At a compound in Shanghai, some residents resisted. Building management set up a megaphone at the entrance with a loop-recorded message: “Why don’t you scan? You have no shame ? Are you that low? What will others think?

In late November, protests against zero-COVID measures erupted in several cities. In Beijing and Shanghai, crowds chanted, No more health codes! No more PCR tests! We want freedom! more “No to dictatorship! Yes to democracy! Some have called for an end to Communist Party rule and the resignation of its leader, Xi Jinping, which is quite a dangerous thing to do in China.

Meanwhile, the national media hammered home the dangers of omicron and long COVID in the United States But just three days later, a top Chinese infectious disease expert, Chong Yutian, said there was no evidence of long COVID in China. Two days later, Guangzhou city officials took off their masks before starting a press conference.

It looks a bit like a new anarchy, independent commentator Ansel Li said in Shanghai, adding that the government has so much control over how people go about their daily lives.

Suddenly, mass testing, lockdowns and health codes are gone.

You kind of feel like society has come back, Li said.

There wasn’t much time to celebrate, however.

Infections have exploded, although their true scale is unclear. China has stopped publishing data on COVID infections since people don’t do regular tests anymore. There was a rush on fever and cough medicine. Hospitals are overwhelmed as well as crematoria.

Family members and friends now have to negotiate COVID protocols, which had been out of their control under the zero-COVID policy. “If I don’t want to get infected, can I ask people around me to do rapid tests, wear masks and self-isolate when there is a risk?” Li asked in an article he wrote on WeChat.

Some people have posted about the chaotic reopening on sister platform TikToks in China, known as Douyin.

When the government insisted on zero-COVID, you ran to protest. Ditch zero-COVID and you run to pharmacies for medicine. Now, do you realize how the government protected us before? said a bar consultant in Wuhan in a Douyin video.

There have also been backlashes against those who have argued that zero-COVID restrictions are stifling business.

The streets are empty. No one wants to come eat. It’s the worst I’ve seen in the restaurant business in the past three years, said a restaurant owner in the southern Chinese city of Zhongshan.

Clearly, there are people who are missing out on the old zero-COVID policy. Now that infections are on the rise, it’s up to individuals to protect themselves.

Additional research by Charles Zhang.