Senior Chinese officials said, Thursday, that their country has achieved a “decisive victory” in its battle against the Corona virus, with the number of deaths falling sharply.
At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo, Chinese leaders expressed that the party’s approach, policies and adjustment of anti-coronavirus measures since November were “absolutely correct,” according to Chinese state television.
The Standing Committee of the Party’s Politburo, according to Bloomberg, urged officials to strengthen monitoring of conditions in local counties and speed up vaccination services among the elderly, as part of efforts to stem this global epidemic.
And last November, China announced that it was suddenly abandoning its strict “zero Covid” policy, stopping mass testing, quarantine, and other restrictive decisions, and narrowing its definition of what constitutes a Covid death.
Andy Chen, a senior analyst at Beijing-based consulting firm Trivium, considers that “declaring total victory and denying any wrongdoing reflects the party’s method of damage control for the sudden and unprepared change in zero Covid policy.”
By publicly praising its policies, Chen tells Bloomberg, the leadership is signaling that it is confident that the most politically dangerous period has passed, having suffered from a decline in public confidence following the continuation of the crackdown.
This is not the first time that China has declared victory over the virus, as it had previously announced that it had overcome the infection in 2020.
And with the death rate declining in China at a faster rate than all countries in the world that witnessed massive Omicron waves last year, questions have increased about the accuracy of the data made by the Chinese authorities and the real impact of the decisions to lift the comprehensive closure.
The World Health Organization has previously called on Beijing for more cooperation, as it continues its search for the origins of the coronavirus.