China’s obsession with achieving “zero Covid cases”
The severe restrictions that China uses to aim for "zero Covid cases", writes the Financial Times, are not only excessive but also risk proving useless and harmful. Here because
The government's instruction to hoard food is rarely a sign that all is well. This, however, is the message that the Chinese Commerce Ministry sent last week, even though there is no underlying food supply problem and the number of infections is not alarming. The directive shows, however, the growing tension caused by Chinese research to reach the goal of "zero Covid cases" and the need for a way out in the few countries that still pursue it – writes the FT .
Apparently, families need a food supply so they can cope with the imposition of a total blockade if Covid-19 cases escalate. The restrictions that China uses to completely stop the transmission chains of the virus have become increasingly severe. It recently closed tens of thousands of visitors inside Disneyland Shanghai for mass testing after uncovering a theme park-related case the day before.
Similar stressful situations are also visible in other nations that still aspire to the "zero Covid cases" scenario, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, which keep their borders almost armored, with long quarantines, even if regional rivals such as Singapore, South Korea and Japan open. New Zealand – long a point of reference for this type of strategy – has begun to abandon this policy in favor of coexistence with the virus.
Throughout much of 2020 and 2021, the zero-case Covid model has been a triumph for countries that have embraced it. Not only were they able to keep Covid deaths to a minimum while buying time for vaccinations, but life was able to go on normally without fear of the virus. It has proved to be a good policy for health and for the economy.
But this is no longer the case, for two reasons. Firstly, the rest of the world has not eliminated Covid, and as long as there is even one case of an infectious disease left, anywhere in the world, it can always come back. "Zero Covid cases" forever therefore means closing the borders forever. Second, the emergence of the more contagious Delta variant means that only extreme closures can eliminate the disease and vaccines can no longer provide a total solution.
The parameters of the Delta variant are relentless. Several estimates suggest that, without countermeasures, the variant has a base reproduction number, a measure of how many new cases each infection will cause, of at least five. This implies that even with a perfectly effective vaccine, 80% of the population must be vaccinated to achieve so-called herd immunity, a state in which the disease can no longer spread.
China is close to that level of vaccination – another political success for Beijing – but none of the Covid vaccines are fully effective and Chinese home-made vaccines appear to be among the least potent.
The bottom line is simply that eliminating Covid is not possible. Even with an effective vaccine, the Delta variant is still too infectious and too entrenched in the world. No matter how many times a country gets rid of the disease, it will come back and keep coming back.
At this stage, therefore, border closures and draconian closures simply postpone the moment when Covid will inevitably become endemic in a population, limiting citizens' freedom. Such restrictions cannot prevent its spread forever. Buying time made sense while waiting for vaccines. Now, however, buying time is useless.
No Covid cases are often popular. The absence of Covid is, after all, a shareable desire. But a continued push for this model increases fear of the virus, while reducing the motivation to get a vaccine, as if the virus is eliminated there will be no need for it.
Just months ago, the “zero Covid cases” countries gained praise for their political success. Now they can win acclaim for the skill with which they leave it behind.
(Extract from the foreign press review by Epr Comunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ossessione-della-cina-per-raggiungere-zero-casi-covid/ on Sun, 21 Nov 2021 06:47:14 +0000.