Surge In Outbreaks Tests China’s Easing Of Zero-COVID Policy

Earlier this month, the China Communist Party’s top leadership body slightly relaxed the country’s strict zero-COVID policies, raising a glimmer of hope that the government was seriously considering eventually lifting its public health controls.

But as COVID-19 cases are once again on the rise across the country, cities are once again locking down thousands of neighborhoods, including in the capital of Beijing, and sending close contacts to quarantine centers — raising questions about how serious authorities are about one day fading out the zero-COVID policy.

“This is the typical policy dilemma that the Chinese leaders face,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. “When you relax and open up, it will lead to chaos, and when you tighten policy, it will be too rigid to allow any flexibility.”

On Tuesday, China logged 28,883 new cases a day, a dramatic spike in a country that has grown accustomed to no more than a few hundred cases a day. Nearly half of the new cases are clustered in the southern city of Guangzhou and the southwestern municipality of Chongqing. Guangzhou ordered a five-day lockdown in its most populous Baiyun district until at least this Friday.

All 41,000 quarantine spots it had available were already filled as Chongqing raced to contain the newest outbreak, said Li Pan, deputy director of the Chongqing Health Commission at a news conference. The municipality announced it was speeding up the construction of new quarantine facilities capable of holding another 47,000 people. More than 5,000 construction workers labored around the clock to open a makeshift quarantine center within just five days.

Many Chinese cities have also resumed mass, mandatory COVID-19 testing, reviving concerns about a faltering domestic economy and dampening hopes for a quick post-pandemic reopening. Earlier, many smaller localities had suspended such testing because they could no longer afford to keep paying for millions of tests a day.

The jump in cases this month has put local authorities in a bind: They have been tasked with both easing the burden of onerous COVID-19 controls, yet simultaneously keep cases as close to zero as possible.

“Basically, you are telling the local government to pursue conflicting goals,” said Huang.

In practice, cities are now imposing targeted lockdowns in all but name as they struggle to fulfill these competing objectives. Authorities are calling the measures “silent management” — meaning residents cannot leave their homes, go to work or travel.