Back in April I wrote about the state of Shanghai’s latest round of lockdowns, asking whether or not something fucky was afoot (more than usual) across the pond in China. Since then, I had just assumed that things were returning back to normal and that the Winter’s lockdowns were an aberration.
But it isn’t looking that way. In fact, China’s latest actions only do more to raise my “fringe” suspicions.
As recent as this week, parts of Wuhan (and its 1 million residents) are being forced to lock down yet again because - wait for it - four cases of asymptomatic Covid were found amongst hundreds of thousands of screenings that the province provides daily.
China has been continuing its “Covid Zero” response strategy, which is makes so little sense and is so inefficient, vain, costly and fruitless that I can’t believe it’s not a product of Democrats here in the U.S.
The gist of the policy has been described as a "control and maximum suppression" strategy that uses “contact tracing, mass testing, border quarantine, lockdowns, and mitigation software” - also known as the George Orwell Special - to try and track and prevent cases.
While this might be doable for small islands or villages off the beaten path of a couple thousands people, the idea that it is going to be implemented to stop a virus no one can see, with success, for a country of 1.4 billion people, is ludicrous.
“The successful containment effort builds confidence in China, based on experience and knowledge gained, that future waves of COVID-19 can be stopped, if not prevented. Case identification and management, coupled with identification and quarantine of close contacts, is a strategy that works,” the Chinese CDC argued, advocating for their intense lockdowns, back in 2020.
According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the reason for China choosing to shut down the way they have is that “so much of China’s population is immunologically naïve that the losses might exceed a million deaths if China reopens before proper protective measures have been introduced.”
Color me not surprised that China has chosen the most intense possible way to lock down its residents and exercise control of them - but with omicron now making its way through the country, it seems like a futile effort. When does it end? Will China be subject to these “snap” lockdowns forever? I’m sure their government wouldn’t mind that…
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