Letter From Shanghai No 1009 - To Consider Other Options

This morning everyone has an opinion about China. So I thought it would be novel to include an original source in this discussion. The People’s Daily, the newspaper through which the CCP informs itself, this morning carries “Adhere to the ninth edition and implement the twenty measures.” And I reprint the salient points: “The requirements for epidemic prevention and control work have not become lower, but higher. All regions and departments must further unify their thoughts and actions with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions and the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee, unswervingly adhere to the supremacy of the people and life.” “Unswervingly implement the general policy of “dynamic clearing”, resolutely overcome the paralyzed and slack mentality, wait-and-see mentality, adhere to the ninth edition of the prevention and control plan, and implement twenty optimization measures, take more resolute and decisive measures to tackle the difficulties, and curb the spread of the epidemic as soon as possible.” In discussing the situation in various regions, it goes on to say. “It is necessary to closely integrate the actual situation of each region, fully, accurately and comprehensively understand and grasp the current epidemic prevention and control policies, carry out prevention and control in a more scientific, standardized, faster and more effective manner, control the key risks that should be controlled, and implement the implementation. In practice, we will resolutely cancel what should be cancelled, make full use of existing resources to improve the efficiency of prevention and control, and effectively coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development.”

I apologise for any weakness in the translation, but I’m sure you get the point. From a Beijing perspective, there is no step back from the zero-Covid strategies (which I will define as daily testing and the isolation of the infected and their close contacts in central quarantine facilities), to which Beijing considers the twenty measures are an appropriate and scientific adjustment. There is no indication in the above that the 20 measures are the leading edge of a greater re-opening, but it is prevention and control that we can see repeated in the text several times. Let’s not forget prevention and control have worked, the number of deaths in China through Covid is negligible, and the number of new cases per day in China until recently could be counted on one hand.

The Lancet has reported that two doses of BioNTech are more effective against severe disease and death than two doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, however, three doses of either vaccine were effectively equivalent. So, the problem isn’t the type of vaccine available in China, it’s the number of people that have had it and how many doses they have had. On this, China accepts it has a problem, the success of zero-Covid’s prevention and control measures has created an ambivalent attitude towards vaccination, and not enough over-60’s have been vaccinated three times. In addition, should this group of under-vaccinated fall ill, the availability of intensive care beds at 3.6 per 100,000 is far below many other nations. Therefore, no matter the perceived damage to the Chinese economy, one might expect China will pursue “zero-Covid + 20” until it is in a position to consider other options. Of course, the international media may continue to discuss other scenarios, the least likely of which is a sudden lurch to opening up.

Have a good day,

?

John