But in the meantime, the existing targeted approach is no longer effective in the city. So now the local leaders face this dilemma: They want to minimize the disruption to the society caused by the COVID-zero strategy, especially considering that this is China’s financial and economic center with 24 million people. So that approach, the so-called precision or targeted approach that Shanghai was so proud of, no longer worked effectively against the Omicron variant. So that makes it difficult to do the contact tracing. So when you trace to someone who was infected, your test results may turn negative. Right? And then there’s also this short incubation period and relatively quick recovery process. Because if you don’t show the symptoms, you’re not going to go to visit a fever clinic to get tested. Ninety-eight percent of the cases are actually asymptomatic, that makes it very difficult to use the PCR regime to detect the virus. But now it’s different because we are talking about a stealth variant that spreads very fast with highly transmissibility. Shanghai has relatively strong local state capacity, so basically epidemiologists and contact tracers were able to run faster than the virus. Shanghai used to be very proud of its targeted, flexible approach in handling COVID cases, an approach that actually was effective before the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant. Well, if you ask the Chinese leader the same question, the answer is simply yes! The numbers are obviously very low by global standards, but the strain on Beijing’s COVID-zero strategy does seem to be very real.ĭo you think that China is going to be able to stick to its COVID-19 strategy? These stories are referring to the fact that since March 1, China has reported almost 90,000 infections nationwide, as well as its first deaths from COVID-19 in more than a year. Shanghai expands COVID lockdown as new daily cases surge by a third. ![]() Will Omicron finally overpower China’s COVID defenses?.No easy exit, Omicron outbreak tests China’s anti-COVID strategy.This is an abridged, edited transcript of our conversation, part of my Invited to Tea interview series.Ī Google News search today for “COVID” and “China” spat up these headlines for me: I spoke to Yanzhong by video call on March 30.
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