hinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent speech to the Communist Party Congress could be one of the most consequential of the decade. He told the audience – and the world – that his economic growth-crushing zero-COVID policy is here to stay, and that Beijing is more determined than ever to reunify with Taiwan, peacefully if possible and by force if necessary.
We are living in a moment of deep geopolitical rifts and extraordinary economic uncertainty, epitomised by Xi’s pronouncements. The world is clearly not reverting to some pre-COVID status quo. Instead, a combination of underlying forces has upended the previous world order and ushered in a period of profound disorder.
No one outside of the Chinese Communist Party knows for sure exactly how many Chinese have caught COVID in recent weeks. The paranoid, authoritarian CCP stopped sharing good data shortly after lifting restrictions. But testing of air travelers from China is fragmentary evidence of a major crisis.
The same testing, along with hundreds of viral samples that Chinese epidemiologists have uploaded to a global COVID database, tells us which forms of the virus are dominant in China. While most of the world is on the down-slope of a medium-sized winter wave caused by XBB, a “recombinant” blend of several Omicron subvariants, China’s just now catching BA.5.2, a subvariant that was dominant everywhere else around six months ago.
And those millions—or even tens of millions—of Chinese BA.5.2 infections have spawned a trio of BA.5.2 spinoffs. Viral samples from several Chinese cities, uploaded last week, were the first evidence of BA.5.2.48, BA.5.2.49 and BA.5.2.50. That’s right: China is now evolving its own forms of COVID.
It’s a problem for China, of course, which has weeks or months of suffering ahead of it as authorities scramble to organize fresh rounds of vaccinations. The jabs are triage—a desperate effort to prevent overfull hospitals from collapsing as the Chinese population slowly, painfully builds up its natural immunity.
Xi’s extraordinary backflip left analysts alarmed and confused. China was not the only country to choose a zero-Covid strategy, and certainly not the only one to “let it rip” once it dropped it. But it was the last, and global health experts say there were plenty of lessons it could have heeded – primarily, making sure vaccinations and health resources were high before the tsunami of cases hit.
“All governments had to decide to open up at some stage or risk the consequences of lockdowns far outweighing the problems of Covid,” says Professor Emma McBryde, an epidemiologist at James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
“Most models suggest that it would be better for the health system to open up slowly. Although there would be little change in how many people get infected, it could mean some lives are saved if the health system can function well.”
But Xi threw the gates open. Right up until the day of repeal, local governments were still developing and enforcing zero-Covid measures and infrastructure. The city of Chongqing was building a 21,000-bed quarantine centre.
Experts on health and Chinese politics have told the Observer they believe the local authorities were hamstrung. Any preparations for ending zero-Covid would be seen as a vote of no confidence in both the policy and Xi – an act of political suicide.
Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world¿s biggest public funding body for science, was criticised by an official watchdog for failing to keep tabs on US-sponsored virus experiments in Wuhan
We saw them say something to the staff there, then suddenly no one would speak to us, so I went outside and asked nearby stores if they had seen lines outside the clinic a few weeks ago. Every time, the government minder would interrupt the conversation to speak to the interviewee, clearly telling them not to say anything.
The government officials again appeared at the next hospital we visited. This time, there were more of them. I tried confronting them, asking why they were following us. Anytime I spoke to them, they would immediately walk away and ignore me. Then, the moment I turned away, they would continue tailing us, while obstructing our reporting.
Chinese authorities should immediately release and drop all charges against everyone detained for participating in the “white paper” protests against the government, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should also cease harassment of lawyers and friends of protesters and the censorship of protest-related information on social media.
— Read on www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/26/china-free-white-paper-protesters
There has been great concern that this year’s Spring Festival mass migration could quickly spread the coronavirus into more remote areas, to deadly effect.
The government warned those in the cities not to go home this year if their elderly relatives had not yet been infected.
Doctor Dong Yongming, who operates a very small village clinic, thinks at least 80% of residents there had already caught Covid.
“All the villagers come to us when they’re sick,” he said. “We’re the only clinic here.”
Most who had died there had underlying diseases, he said.
In terms of managing the medicine they had as Covid hit the village, Dr Dong said they would not sell medicine to people beyond their needs.
“For example, I would only give out four Ibuprofen tablets per person,” he said. “They don’t need two boxes. It’ll just be wasted.”
However he said he believed the worst of this Covid wave was already behind them: “We haven’t had any patients in recent days.”
Those who die in this region are buried in the fields. Farmers then continue to plant crops and raise livestock around the mounds of their ancestors.
Driving along the road we noticed fresh mounds of earth with red flags placed on the top. A lot of them. A farmer herding goats confirmed that they were new graves.
“Families have been burying elderly people here after they die. There are just too many,” he said.
In the weeks following anti-zero Covid protests in Beijing, a protester made a video warning she could vanish. Soon after filming the video, she was arrested. CNN’s Selina Wang reports.
China’s healthcare system has been overwhelmed by a surge in Covid cases since abandoning its zero-Covid policy last month. Now there are fears that the Covid crisis could worsen amid Lunar New Year celebrations. CNN’s Ivan Watson reports.
A month after mainland China ditched its zero-Covid policy, hospitals have been seeing a surge in the number of Covid-19 patients. The Post visited two hospitals in Shanghai, where emergency rooms were swamped with patients, many of them elderly.
Why so many Positive Chinese are holding covid negative certifications from China ?
为什么持有中国新冠肺炎阴性认证的阳性中国人那么多呢?
Is Covid test in China also a low reliability as like China covid shot ?
中国的新冠肺炎检查也像中国注射新冠肺炎一样可信度低吗?
At a time when the tsunami of epidemics in China is becoming more fierce, the Chinese Healthcare Commission and the Chinese National Immigration Administration announced on the evening of December 26 and 27, respectively, that starting from January 8, 2023, applications for ordinary passports for Chinese citizens traveling and visiting friends overseas, as well as travel and business visas to Hong Kong, will be resumed. We believe that during the production of this video, more countries will join the bandwagon, and more restrictive policies will likely be imposed on Chinese tourists. 在中国传染病海啸愈演愈烈之际,中国卫生保健委员会和中国移民局分别于12月26日和27日晚宣布,从2023年1月8日开始,中国公民出境旅游和探亲申请普通护照。海及来港旅游及商务签证将会恢复。 我们相信，在制作这段视频的过程中，会有更多的国家加入进来，对中国游客施加更多的限制性政策。
A Chinese national quarantining at a hotel new Covid-19 restrictions for travellers from China. The woman was ordered to undergo a mandatory seven-day quarantine on January 6, 2023, after testing positive for the coronavirus on arrival at Incheon International Airport even though she had boarded the flight with proof of a negative result.
Giorgia Meloni said Italy’s attempt to deal with surging coronavirus cases in China would fail, if other European countries didn’t also test travellers. But a meeting of EU health officials failed to reach agreement on a way forward. China is seeing coronavirus levels surge as it loosens restrictions on travel. The UK government says it is keeping the situation under review.
A growing number of countries now require people arriving from China to show negative COVID-19 tests. Beijing has re-opened its borders after nearly three years of pandemic travel restrictions – but China’s surging coronavirus infections are making other nations nervous.
