Covid response: does China know something others don’t?

In much of the world, there is a feeling that the Covid-19 pandemic is over. In some countries the numbers support this hypothesis. In the USA, new cases in mid-March were only 25,000 per day compared to a peak of almost a million and half in January. In Pakistan, there are around 500 new cases. However, this is not the case in other countries where cases remain high and are once again on the rise despite the very high rates of vaccine coverage. In Italy where I live, the daily case load fell from 200,000 in January to 18,000 at the end of February but have now risen to 70,000 new cases per day even though 90% of the population is fully vaccinated. The situation is similar in several other European countries.

Despite these high caseloads in some countries, restrictions are being rapidly eased. In Italy, the state of emergency, along with many associated measures, will be over at the end of March. In the UK the Prime Minister, in a speech to parliament as early as January, announced the withdrawal of all restrictions even though there were 100,000 new cases every day. A similar approach is being taken in other European countries with restrictions being rapidly eased. Austria which had announced mandatory vaccinations has now suspended this legislation. In Pakistan the National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) announced lifting all Covid-19 restrictions imposed across the country.

The decision by many governments to do away with restrictions appears to be largely driven by social and economic exigencies. There is a strong desire to get back to normal, for lifestyles to be restored and for economic activity and growth to resume. There also seems to a shift in mainstream scientific opinion. Available evidence suggests that vaccinations have provided a strong bulwark against serious illness — in fact statistics show that most of the hospitalisations and deaths are among those not vaccinated.

Moreover, the currently dominant Omicron variant has relative mild symptoms and only affects the upper respiratory tracks and not the lungs and heart as the previous variants, such as Delta, did. The current consensus is that the SAR-COV-2 virus is done with killing people and will become endemic, creating minor seasonal problems much like the flu virus.

If the scientific consensus is correct — that Covid has done its worst and is on its way out — why is China sticking to its ‘Zero Covid’ policy? My first thought was that it had to do with the Winter Olympics. The government did not want the games to be marred by a Covid outbreak and hence was being excessively cautious. But the Games have passed and there is little sign of a policy shift. In fact recent measures were as draconian as ever.

China in mid-March reported a record high of more than 5,000 new cases in a day — 5,000 cases in a population of 1.4 billion, compared to over 100,000 new cases in France (population 67 million), over 200,000 new cases in Germany (population 83 million), and 120,000 new cases in the UK (population 67 million).

In response this case load which is miniscule compared to other countries, the entire Jilin province in the northeast of China with a population of about 24 million has been placed under quarantine: residents have been banned from moving around, and anyone wanting to leave the province must apply for police permission.

Restrictions have been placed in other cities. In Shenzhen, a technology hub with over 10 million residents, a five-day lockdown was imposed with all buses and subway services suspended. Several other cities, some near major centres such as Beijing or Guangzhou, have also imposed lockdowns. Businesses in these areas, unless they are considered essential, have been asked to close or have their employees work from home.

So what is going on? Why is China locking down large swathes of the country for a case load that is tiny? There are three possible explanations that I can think of:

The first explanation could be that the official numbers of new cases reported are not correct; and actual infection rates are much much higher. If this were the case, the government response reflects the real situation on the ground and not the fabricated numbers reported to the WHO or the international community.

A second explanation could be that Chinese scientists know something about the virus that others do not. Let us not forget that research on corona viruses has been going on in China for a long time; and it is certainly plausible that Chinese scientist know of serious long-term effects. Should the rest of the world stop for a moment and ask: do they know something we do not? And if so, should we be in such a rush to get back to normal?

A third explanation is that China is doing a stress test on the social and economic life of the country in preparation of a war with the USA. Such a war is highly likely and will probably be sparked by an invasion of Taiwan. The USA and Europe might well react, as they are doing in the case of Russia, with sanctions. The Covid-related restrictions could be a way of testing how things will function if key activities were to stop.

It is worth recalling that Jilin is home to several foreign factories such as Toyota and Volkswagen and there is a big iPhone factory in Shenzhen. By closing down these activities China can test the impact on its own economy and also send a signal to its trading partners about how important China is to the global economy.

And maybe by shutting down an entire province the Chinese government is doing a large-scale test run — one on the impact of a nuclear attack which requires the area affected by radioactive fallout to be isolated from the rest of the country.

Maybe all this is fanciful — but I would not be too sure.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2022.

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