Analyse. Despite all its efforts not to let anything leak out of the number of contaminations and deaths due in recent weeks to the outbreak of Covid-19 on its territory, the Chinese government has not managed to hide the failure of its management model. the epidemic. After making its population live under a bell for three years, Beijing suddenly let go of the floodgates in December 2022, without providing any support, whether in terms of tests, treatments or vaccines. The result: hospitals swallowed up by the flood of patients in respiratory distress, saturated crematoriums and health authorities who can no longer keep track of a wave they had not anticipated.
Does the Chinese example signify the failure of the zero Covid strategy? Other countries had decided to adopt this course of action, consisting in completely eradicating the circulation of the virus through confinement, border control and respect for strict quarantines. In Australia and New Zealand, but also in many Asian countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Laos, Thailand or Taiwan, this strategy has prevented many deaths. In the first year of the pandemic, some 750,000 people are estimated to have died from the disease in Europe, while only 20,000 were counted in zero Covid countries.
In 2020 and 2021, zero Covid has thus proven itself in terms of health. The supporters of this strategy were still numerous, arguing for a very strict policy of containment in the hope of resuming a normal life afterwards. But in 2022, the Omicron variant changed that. Very different from its Alpha, Beta and Delta predecessors, it showed great capacities for transmission and immune escape (antibody resistance). In most countries, its arrival was the trigger that precipitated the decision to gradually abandon restrictions, with the idea that this virus could not be contained, we had to learn to “live with it”.
Protect the most vulnerable
In China, the Omicron tidal wave on the contrary led to even stronger confinements and restrictive measures, which culminated, in November 2022, in demonstrations unparalleled in the country since the movement in Tiananmen Square, in 1989. Because the first limit of the zero Covid strategy is its duration. The health argument cannot stand alone for three years to justify restricting the freedom of movement of an entire population.
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