Up until the last minute before China relaxed three years of severe covid restrictions, officials and state media were hailing the country’s “unswerving” commitment to a strict containment strategy and the “significant advantages of our socialist system.”
That same system then witnessed a chaotic reopening, with the abrupt abandonment of lockdowns, mass testing, quarantines and contact tracing. Sick patients have since overwhelmed hospitals, and funeral homes and crematoriums have been mobbed, while relatives outside China scrambled to send basic medications that were suddenly nowhere to be found.
“It came too soon and caused massive infections in a short time,” Liang Wannian, an epidemiologist and adviser to Beijing’s covid response team, told state TV last week, admitting that authorities were caught off guard. It is unclear how many have died; analysts estimate deaths could reach 36,000 a day during the Lunar New Year holiday that begins next week.
China, engulfed in covid chaos, braces for Lunar New Year case spike
The sudden policy reversal in early December and lack of preparation in a country that for years marshaled huge amounts of resources and personnel to enforce covid rules on 1.4 billion people have baffled residents and public health experts.
“There was no plan. No steps. No contingency plans. When Singapore reopened, it was in four stages. We’ve done it in one go,” Wei Jianing, a researcher at the Counselor’s Office, an advisory body of the State Council, said in a speech at an online forum Dec. 24. His comments were later censored on Chinese platforms.
“From hospital beds to medicine, vaccines and medical workers, we are not prepared. For three full years, there was no preparation at all,” he added, accusing Chinese decision-makers of becoming “zombified.”
Facing economic and social pressures, as well as an omicron variant that was already breaching covid defenses, China’s leaders had little choice about relaxing restrictions, but a potent mix of factors, including President Xi Jinping’s highly centralized decision-making, the party’s total mobilization for “zero covid,” and confused messaging, resulted in a rushed and chaotic reopening.
This mismanagement could not only dent public confidence in Xi just as he begins his third term, but also hurt the ruling party’s ability to govern.
“Even if it’s really over, for us, the trauma is not over,” she said. “If they can suddenly end all of these measures in an instant, they can also force it on us again. Whether it’s reopening or tightening, it’s all the same — it all happened suddenly with no thought about the people.”