China’s Zero-COVID Policy

April 14, 2022

While other countries across the planet are gradually relaxing their COVID related restrictions and urging their respective citizens that they will have to adjust to the COVID-19 virus, China is following a strict Zero-Covid policy.

Overview:

The Zero-Covid policy of China involves the use of aggressive measures and policies that are necessary to eliminate and control the COVID-19 virus’s local transmission.
The Chinese government remains determined to control COVID-19 outbreaks in the country including the smaller ones. They are prepared to use any harsh measures to get the desired results.
This policy of China is affecting public life and the citizens are discontenting.
A recent COVID spike led China to implement these measures and placed 193 million people across 23 cities, including Shanghai, in partial or full lockdown.
Through the implementation of lockdown measures the control of the local spread was temporarily successful, but the highly transmissible Omicron variant poses a challenge to this policy.

Impact of Zero-COVID Policy

The measures that are being implemented by China to stop local transmission have been deemed as Draconian by the people as the people of the country are not able to access essential services like food and health care.
Several major cities of the country have come to a halt as the residents of the cities are being confined to their respective houses with limited availability of essential resources.
Since 2020, China has drastically cut international travel in the country by restricting flights and cancelling visas.
This stringent policy of China is also putting strain on the country’s economy.
While millions are under lockdown, a lot of the citizens have been forced to relocate to various quarantine camps or metal box houses and have been forced to undergo mass testing.
The conditions at these quarantine camps are also not up to the mark with there being a lack of hot water, portable toilets, and privacy.

Relaxation of the policy

While the country is still implementing these strict measures, the government has shown signs of relaxing other COVID related measures. The criteria for discharging a patient from quarantine have also been relaxed. Earlier, the Chinese government had ruled that asymptomatic, as well as patients with mild symptoms, must also be admitted to the hospital, but now they are proposing to locally isolate such asymptomatic or mild cases.

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