Protesters are calling for China to ease restrictions most nations have already ditched. But the country faces a fraught path toward normalcy.
Scott Kennedy, senior adviser with the Washington, DC, think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, visited China in October. “When I was there, it seemed clear to me that, privately, officials understood they needed to exit zero-Covid, and that plans were in the works to do so that would be implemented after the 20th Party Congress,” he says. That took place later that month and cemented President Xi Jinping’s third term.
China faces a few specific problems that would exacerbate the spread of the virus if it entirely lifts the policy. The nation is an outlier in that its elderly population, one of the most at risk, is somewhat hesitant to get jabbed: Kennedy says the low uptake may be partly due to the low presence of the virus, to people’s negative experiences with the health care system in the past, and to the baseless belief that traditional Chinese medicine provides a safer alternative.
Xi Chen, a professor of health policy and economics at Yale University, says China has allocated medical resources to quarantine centers, where people must go even if they have no or mild symptoms. “I think this is simply a waste of resources,” he says. Allowing people to quarantine at home would free up some medical workers to vaccinate the vulnerable or care for the critically ill.they would focus on giving more booster shots to vulnerable populations.
These protests are the most significant the country has seen in decades, and a sharp criticism of Xi's administration as well as the lack of coordination between the central and local governments. “These protests are the consequences of a boggled effort to begin to exit zero-Covid,” Kennedy says. “I am amazed at how bumbling the Chinese government's efforts have been.”
Kennedy says the policy may not last through the winter, and Chen thinks China could potentially reopen by the spring, if it moves quickly to reach higher booster vaccination rates among vulnerable populations. “Either the Chinese government is going to proactively try to exit zero-Covid, as they were trying to do so in a sort of quiet manner earlier this month, or they're going to be pulled kicking and screaming to a post–zero Covid era,” Kennedy says.
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