China: in the midst of an epidemic rebound, Xi Jinping clings to the “zero Covid” strategy

Published on: 03/17/2022 – 15:35 Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered, on Thursday, to continue the policy of zero Covid, at a time when China is facing its worst epidemic resurgence since the first wave of 2020. So As China faces a surge in Covid-19 cases under pressure from the Omicron variant, President Xi Jinping refuses to relax restrictive measures to fight the virus. He ordered Thursday, March 17 to continue the so-called zero Covid policy. While voices have been pleading in recent months for a relaxation of restrictions, the communist power celebrates its health policy as proof of the superiority of its political system, in comparison with epidemic outbreak in the rest of the world.Strict confinements, massive screeningsAs soon as a case of Covid-19 appears, the authorities impose strict confinement measures and carry out massive and repeated screenings of the population.The rigid policy of zero Covid has allowed China to limit its death toll to less than 5,000 since the start of the pandemic. But the Omicron strain is behind an upsurge in the epidemic, which on Thursday affected 2,432 people in the past 24 hours, according to figures from the Ministry of Health, a high death toll for China. “We must always update foreground people and their lives, we stick […] to the policy of zero Covid, and to stem the spread of the epidemic as quickly as possible”, President Xi Jinping ordered Thursday, according to comments reported by public television. This declaration comes at a time when tens of millions of Chinese are confined across the country. Within days, at least 17 cities were placed under quarantine, including the tech metropolis of Shenzhen in the south of the country, with a population of 17.5 million. Thursday’s figures were largely weighed down by the toll of the province of Jilin, in the northeast, bordering North Korea, a country which escaped the Covid-19 according to its authorities. of China, reported just 165 new cases on Thursday but authorities have locked down many neighborhoods. , was almost desert. These strict containment measures weigh on daily life and the economy. It happens that people find themselves stuck at their place of work or in restaurants while waiting to be screened. The wait for the result can be up to 48 hours. A top Chinese scientist called on the country in early March to try to live with the virus and abandon its so-called zero Covid strategy “in the near future”. . Very few Chinese have been infected and their herd immunity comes almost entirely from domestically produced vaccines, noted this expert, Zeng Guang, who considered China weakened on this point compared to the West. This peak in China comes as the Cases are spiraling out of control in Hong Kong, where hospitals are overflowing with patients and locals are robbing supermarkets in panic, fearing a lockdown. With AFP