As Omicron Surges and Economy Suffers, China Tweaks ‘Zero Covid’

March 21, 2022

(New York Times) – When the coronavirus first swept across China in early 2020, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, declared a “people’s war” against the epidemic, launching what would become a no-holds-barred strategy to eliminate infections. Now, in year three of the pandemic, and faced with the rise of a stealthy and rapidly spreading variant, Mr. Xi is trying to fine-tune the playbook, ordering officials to quash outbreaks — but also to limit the economic pain involved. As China grapples with the country’s largest outbreak since the pandemic began in Wuhan more than two years ago, Beijing says its measures should be more precise in scope. Officials are now promoting policies that to much of the world might either seem obvious, such as allowing the use of at-home test kits, or still extreme, such as sending people to centralized isolated facilities instead of hospitals. (Read More)