Chinese and foreign studies warn that the end of the restrictions would leave more than a million dead due to low vaccination of the elderly and the precarious rural health network
While in European countries they go lifting the restrictions derived from the coronavirus and how to live with the virus in a post-pandemic phase is designed, China persist in the politics of covid zero. the masks are mandatory even in closed public spaces and frequent in the streets. You do not enter bars, restaurants or supermarkets without showing the negative result of a test on your mobile. test performed in the last three days.
The kiosks for the tests already integrate the street furniture. The Government ordered that any citizen have one within a 15-minute walk and the directive was generously complied with. In Beijing there are them on almost every corner, attended by officials in their full protective suits, and it is enough to avoid the lunch hour queues to air the procedure in a few minutes. The day to day demands a few minimum annoyances already internalized.
The regrets come with mobility. Leaving the country is discouraged due to the numerous tests required by the airport and the forced quarantine upon return. The risks of encountering an outbreak do not encourage domestic tourism or business trips either. It is advisable to make sure on the eve that the destination is a “green zone & rdquor; for avoid problems on return or quarantines but no precaution prevents cases from emerging after landing. Thousands of Chinese were trapped on the tropical island of Sanya by a dozen infections, condemned to see the white sand beaches and turquoise waters from the hotel room. Other tourist destinations such as Xinjiang, Tibet or Yunnan have also ruined vacations with quarantines activated on the run.
strict protocols
The protocols are strict and the layoffs that any outbreak triggers prevent the wide sleeve. An official faced with doubts about his future or common sense will always go to the script. The epidemic has returned protagonism to the neighborhood committees, busy with the most banal steps until compliance with the anticovid policy fell on their shoulders. Many blame them for zeal that borders on despotism. Some foreigners who were preparing to enjoy freedom in Beijing after the mandatory quarantine in Tianjin upon arrival in China were informed by their neighborhood committees that they needed an additional one for arriving from a city with cases. It mattered little that they insisted that they did not set foot on the street in Tianjin and that they arrived in Beijing in the van that had picked them up at the door of the hotel. The owner of a bar in Sanlitun, Beijing’s epicenter of entertainment, laments that the daily whistleblower of the local policeman will decide whether he can serve drinks, food or plug in the loudspeaker.
Uncertainty and boredom
Uncertainty, some arbitrariness and boredom have dampened popular enthusiasm for a policy that has shielded the country from global deaths and recessions. The Chinese are far from considering it sterile stubbornness and alien to science and reason, as is often presented in the West, but doubts arise. Two events have widened the dissent. The first was the shanghai Drama, a fudge caused by the cosmopolitan drive of local authorities who disdained the Chinese formula and let the cases pile up until there was no choice but to lock up 25 million people for almost three months. The second was the 27 killed in a bus accident in Guizhou. They were contacts of a positive person who were taken at night to isolation centers hundreds of kilometers away and the message that the covid zero policy killed more people than covid became popular on the networks.
opening on the horizon
When Beijing will retire her is the million dollar question. Several Chinese and foreign scientific studies warn that the cheerful opening recommended by Western voices would leave more than a million dead due to the low vaccination of the elderly and the precarious rural health network. But the policy is unsustainable in the medium term and Shanghai has already proved the failure of the third way. The only certainty is that China has a major problem.
Many predict an opening after the imminent Congress of the Communist Party of China with the same optimism with which they had announced it after the National People’s Congress, the Beijing Winter Olympics or the New Year holidays. No one knows the date of China’s entry into that global normality of open borders, absence of masks and indifference to the death toll and the aftermath.