In December, China abruptly abandoned its draconian
“zero-COVID” policies, battered by a surge of infections and rising public
anger against lockdowns.
اضافة اعلان
Half a year on, COVID cases again are on the rise, but this
time, the nation appears to be determined to press on with normal life as the
government focuses on reigniting economic growth.
Although other countries have long settled into such a
pattern, it is a shift for China. Until late last year, its national leadership
was still ready to lock down whole neighborhoods and districts, even cities, in
a bid to stamp out what were sometimes just small clusters of cases.
Newer subvariants
Chinese health authorities have reported a rise in COVID
cases since April, especially from newer subvariants that are spreading across
the world.
Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a prominent doctor who was among the
first to openly confirm in early 2020 that COVID could easily spread among
people, estimated Monday that by late June, as many as 65 million people a week
could become infected with the coronavirus across China. (That would be up from
what he estimated at 40 million infections a week in late May. China no longer
publishes regular official nationwide estimates of infections.)
By comparison, after “zero-COVID” controls were set aside in
December, new infections reached 37 million a day in China at their peak,
according to estimates cited by Bloomberg.
Even if, as Zhong acknowledged, the pace of rising
infections is laden with uncertainty, a rebound in cases was always likely, and
many in China appear steeled to living with a background hum of COVID
infections and sometimes COVID deaths.
“People have become used to infections, and they see this as
normal in the post-COVID era,” Lin Zixian, 36, who works for a technology
company in Beijing, said in a telephone interview. China’s leader, Xi Jinping,
still often wears a medical mask when he meets people indoors. But Lin said
that he and other members of his family had stopped masking in most public spaces,
as have many people in China.
“Many of my friends got infected last year and got infected
again this year,” Lin said. “Personally, I’m pretty calm about the virus and
pandemic.”
Tight restrictions, fewer jobs
Officials across China appear to be trying to prepare the
population for a rise in infections without reintroducing the heavy controls
that by late last year had exhausted public patience. Since abandoning its
tight restrictions on domestic travel, the government has shifted to reviving
growth and job creation. The jobless rate of about 20 percent among urban youth
may appear more politically pressing than rising COVID numbers.
“After most people had caught the last wave, the intensity
was gone,” said Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University
of Chicago who has been finishing a book on China’s handling of the pandemic.
He added that China now treated COVID as a “Class B” illness
— not the most urgent category — and officials, although monitoring the latest
increase in cases, “have also been trying to reassure the public, saying that
the symptoms are relatively mild.”
Health officials in Beijing have recommended wearing masks
on buses and subways, but it is not mandatory, and quite a few passengers do
not, especially younger ones. While the recent rise in cases may yet strain
hospitals, many people appear more willing to endure the illness at home rather
than heading to fever clinics.
“Even if my son got COVID, I wouldn’t mind staying in the
same room with him,” said Lin, the technology worker.
For many younger patients, infection can mean a week or so
with a fever and other symptoms. Over recent weeks, people have chronicled
their symptoms on social media, often in a tone of mordant resignation.
More worrisome are older people, many of whom have not had
COVID and who may not have received a full round of vaccination shots.
Up to three-quarters of Chinese people infected in the
recent rise were not infected in the first wave, Dr. Zhang Wenhong, the
director of the center for infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai
and a major voice in China’s response to COVID, said in a recent interview with
Chinese media outlets.
Nonetheless, the resurgence in cases “should not have a huge
impact overall on economic activity and life,” Zhang said, according to Yicai,
a Chinese business newspaper. “We should not go too far” in taking pandemic
prevention measures in response, he added.
Dong-yan Jin, a professor of virology at the University of
Hong Kong who has tracked China’s response to COVID, concurred that many of
those recently infected were likely to be older or physically frail people who
were fenced off from the “tsunami” of infections late last year.
“The elderly were well protected in the period of the
tsunami, because their families and carers tried their best to protect them,”
Jin said. “But now the risks for them are high, because people are less
vigilant.”
China should increase vaccination rates, especially among
older people; upgrade its homegrown vaccine to better protect against new
variants; allow the introduction of internationally developed vaccines; and
make antiviral drugs cheaper and more available to COVID patients, Jin said.
“Most people have recognized from their own experience that
COVID is not a monster and is not so terrifying, and that’s actually positive,”
he said. “But it is not true that COVID is gone and will never come again, so
this message also has to be made clear to the public.”
Read more Health
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
