Food distribution in a Shanghai neighborhood. /
Despite the economic and social impact of the closure of Shanghai, the regime will not let the coronavirus circulate because it would trigger a mortality rate that was controlled until the emergence of omicron
Sooner or later, the coronavirus ends up hitting all countries. That is what is happening now to China, which had protected itself very well against the pandemic after controlling its outbreak in Wuhan two years ago but is suffering its worst outbreak since then due to the emergence of the super-contagious Omicron variant. As if time had not passed, the regime has opted for the same solution to stop it, confining not only the 25 million inhabitants of Shanghai, but tens of millions more in other cities where cases have also been detected.
The problem is that this “covid 0” policy, which worked as an emergency measure to stop the spread of covid-19, may not serve to contain the BA.2 subtype of Ómicron that already circulates in 28 of the 31 provinces of the country. country, which is up to 30 percent more contagious. More difficult to detect due to the mildness of its symptoms, the extremely high transmission capacity of BA.2 is as unstoppable as colds every winter, which is why the rest of the world has decided to live with it and “infect it with the flu” thanks to the protection of the vaccines and of the group immunity acquired by the contagions of the last two years.
But China, which had based its shielding on border closures and on its own vaccines that seem to be less effective than Western ones against Omicron, does not have such herd immunity. To add insult to injury, the level of complete vaccination among those over 60 years of age is not as high as in the West and this is the most vulnerable population. According to data from the National Health Commission, compared to 56 percent of Chinese with three doses between 60 and 69 years, the figure drops to 48 percent between 70 and 79 and remains only in 20 percent with more than 80.
With more than 50 million people over 60 years of age without the complete guideline and at least 15 million octogenarians without vaccination, the risk for China is that Ómicron causes a bleeding like the one Hong Kong has suffered since the beginning of the year. With no coffins in funeral homes, the former British colony has one of the highest mortality rates in the world because 66 percent of its over-80s are still unvaccinated and one in four infections ends in death.
With the precedent of the more than a thousand deaths per day caused by the coronavirus in other overpopulated developing countries and with weak health systems, such as India, Indonesia or Vietnam during their peaks last year, China finds itself between a sword and a knife. wall: either covid or massive lockdowns despite their strong economic and social impact.
The decision is clear in view of the total closure of Shanghai, which represents 3 percent of Chinese GDP and contributes more than 10 percent to its total trade. In addition to health reasons, there are political reasons behind it. During these last two years, the Communist Party regime has legitimized its authoritarian model in its best protection of life against the ravages that the coronavirus has unleashed in the chaotic Western democracies. Changing the strategy now is unthinkable not only because it would trigger mortality, but because it would be a dangerous “loss of face” in a particularly sensitive year. In the autumn the 20th Congress of the Communist Party is held and President Xi Jinping, who has made the “covid 0” policy a personal cause, will remain in office becoming the most powerful leader since Mao.
For this very important reason, the figures of the coronavirus in China must be taken with reservations, which seems to have worked a new “miracle” with the outbreak in Shanghai. Although the city has registered more than 220,000 cases since March, it has not reported a single death and ensures that the vast majority of those infected are asymptomatic. Of the more than 20,000 infected that have been detected every day thanks to massive tests, the authorities assure that only a thousand of them present symptoms. Such a disparity, which does not match any global statistics, suggests that the asymptomatic, which are on a separate list to smooth the figures, also include the usual mild omicron patients.
THE KEYS:
High risk.
Added to the lower efficacy of their vaccines is the low immunization among the elderlyConcept.
President Xi Jinping has made the ‘covid 0’ policy a personal cause
Apart from the veracity of the Chinese data, which has been in doubt since the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan, what no one is exempt from is isolation in quarantine centers set up in gigantic congress halls in very precarious conditions. With up to 15,000 beds at the New Shanghai International Exhibition Center, patients are within a meter of each other and share toilets, prompting angry complaints. To avoid such an ordeal in case they test positive, the United States consulate has ordered the evacuation of its non-essential personnel.
Food shortage
Meanwhile, the hardships of confinement continue for the rest of the residents of Shanghai, such as the Spanish photographer Quique Calpe. Locked up at home since April 1 with his wife and his six-year-old son, he has already had half a dozen PCR tests and has exhausted the supplies he had stored when the confinement was ordered. “We had only bought food for five days and everyone has turned to online sales applications. But, due to the avalanche of orders, the servers have been saturated and, in addition, there are no home delivery people because they are also confined », he explains by phone from Shanghai.
“As I have not been able to buy anything the four days that I have gotten up before six in the morning, when some food sales applications open, the thousand residents of our urbanization have formed groups on the internet to make large orders, which are the the only ones who are finally taken care of”, explains Calpe. Equipped with a special protective suit, he helps distribute water orders in his building and assures that he is “in good spirits, but his patience is beginning to run out because confinement is very stressful and we don’t know when it will end.”
Although the government occasionally distributes bags with vegetables, a frozen chicken and canned pork, their quality is worse than what residents of Shanghai, the most developed city in China and with an abundant middle class, are used to. As seen in the images circulating on social networks, entire blocks are protesting and demanding to go out to work and buy food. Despite the growing unrest, the regime is between a rock and a hard place and its dilemma is very clear: confinement before covid.