Shanghai's Omicron Outbreak Corners Chinese Leader - WSJ - 0 views
-
China’s top leaders believe that confining residents to their homes during outbreaks is the most effective way to keep death rates low and avoid overwhelming the country’s healthcare system.
-
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a public forum in November that China would have had about 260 million Covid-19 cases and more than three million deaths if it had adopted looser restrictions similar to those in the U.S. and U.K.
-
China has reported fewer than 260,000 cases and less than 5,000 deaths, compared with 80 million confirmed cases and nearly a million deaths in the U.S.
- ...11 more annotations...
-
The economic and social costs of the Chinese strategy have climbed with the rise of more easily transmitted variants. Retail sales, tourism and manufacturing have suffered from residential lockdowns, business closures and travel bans. A population that largely supported zero-Covid measures early on has tired of tight limits on the routines of daily life.
-
Her food is running low, she said. On Monday, Ms. Wang got her first food delivery from the government: two zucchini, a carton of milk, 10 sausages, noodles and a can of Spam. “As someone who hasn’t been infected by the virus, my biggest question is, ‘How long do we have to endure such lack of freedom?’ ” she said.
-
Before the latest outbreak, Mr. Xi and other top officials saw Shanghai as a model for China’s long-term goal of living with the virus, according to the people close to government decision-making.
-
Shanghai, run by a close ally of Mr. Xi, never had serious problems. The few cases that had surfaced in the past two years were secured with limited apartment and neighborhood closures. Unlike the rest of China, mask-wearing wasn’t widely adopted by city residents.
-
in undisclosed comments to members of the Politburo Standing Committee, Mr. Xi made clear that China couldn’t back down from its stringent Covid approach, even if it meant slower economic growth, according to a person close to decision-making who was briefed on the remarks.
-
Then an influx of visitors arrived from Hong Kong, hoping to escape an outbreak there. Many stayed at a Shanghai hotel where officials say the virus spread in early March to the staff and beyond. At the time, city authorities said wide-ranging lockdowns wouldn’t be necessary.
-
A few days later, Shanghai initiated a two-stage lockdown. Speaking at a teleconference with other infectious-disease experts around that time, Mr. Wu, China CDC’s chief epidemiologist, said Shanghai didn’t act decisively enough in the latest outbreak and missed its chance to control the outbreak,
-
In Shanghai, people with Covid-19 are confined to home, and access to medical care for those with other illnesses has been limited. Food deliveries, arranged by local authorities, have been delayed in some neighborhoods, according to interviews with more than a dozen residents.
-
Local officials have reported no Covid-related fatalities. The Journal learned that at least two elder-care hospitals have been battling an outbreak, with more than 20 deaths at one of the facilities.
-
Thousands of users of Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, have shared stories of people with life-threatening illnesses such as cancer unable to get treatment, adding to citywide feelings of helplessness.
-
“Fighting all the previous variants was like putting out a forest fire, it can be done,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “But Omicron is like the wind. How do you stop the wind?”