What is China’s zero covid policy and how long has it been in effect?

China is the last major country seeking to stamp out the coronavirus completely, rather than simply control its spread or attempt to keep it outside its borders. While some countries attempted to “flatten the curve” — slow the spread of the virus — in 2020 and beyond, China has maintained a policy of attempting to keep coronavirus cases as close to zero as possible. That has led to the implementation of a plethora of restrictions and rules, many of them extreme in comparison to policies employed in the rest of the world, even during the depths of the pandemic. Most noticeably, mainland China has shut its borders to tourists. Anyone else who is allowed to enter or reenter the country must endure a quarantine period, causing many citizens and residents to refrain from leaving its borders to begin with. China has used tactics like drones reminding people to wear masks and stay at home , and its zero covid policies in recent months — as the rest of the world moves on from the pandemic — have been criticized as draconian. In the spring, the Shanghai government forced millions to stay in their homes in a weeks-long lockdown that left many in the country’s most populous city without enough food or other basic necessities. Widespread, mandated testing for the virus sent many who tested positive into government quarantine centers , where patients have complained of poor conditions , little privacy and no sleep under lights kept on 24 hours a day.

How many people have gotten covid in China? How many have died?

Total coronavirus cases and related deaths are far fewer than in the rest of the world. About 1.5 million cases have been reported in China, with more than 5,000 deaths, according to Our World in Data , an Oxford University project that tracks coronavirus cases. The United States, with a population one-quarter the size of China’s, has recorded more than 98 million cases and more than 1 million deaths. Still, the low case totals could be contributing to China’s current predicament, as its population — with little natural immunity from prior infection — faces outbreaks of the more contagious omicron variant. That, coupled with poorer protection from domestic vaccines when compared with the mRNA vaccines used elsewhere in the world, has raised fears that the country could be on the brink of a health crisis heading into the winter months as the virus continues to spread .

Have people died because of zero covid?

While China’s policies have kept its covid-related deaths low, they have also contributed to deaths unrelated to coronavirus infections. There have been multiple reports of deaths due to medical emergencies that went untreated because of restrictions and medical facilities under strain from recent outbreaks. In Shanghai, a nurse died of an asthma attack after being refused admittance to her own hospital. In other cases, people were refused ambulances or medical care because they could not provide proof of negative coronavirus tests or because resources were being diverted to hospitals treating coronavirus patients. Recently a 3-year-old boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning after covid restrictions delayed his parents in getting him to a hospital. In September, 27 people who were put on a bus to a quarantine center in Guizhou province because they were considered close contacts died after the bus rolled into a ditch . For many, the late-night crash became a tragic example of the risks Chinese officials were taking to accommodate the zero covid policies. Last week, 10 people died in an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang , which had been under strict lockdown. Many blamed covid restrictions for the residents’ inability to flee and for firefighters being unable to do their jobs effectively. Officials blamed the residents for being “too weak” to escape.

What does zero covid have to do with recent protests?

The fire last week set off protests in Xinjiang — a region closely surveilled by the government — which later spread across the country in a rare, unified display of discontent . While the protests started as a reaction to the deaths in Xinjiang, they grew into a larger rebuke of China’s zero covid policies, government restrictions and surveillance and, in some cases, explicit criticism of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Why does China persist with this policy despite growing unrest?

Xi has defended his zero covid policies as doing what is best for the Chinese people. When Beijing hosted the Olympics last winter, tight restrictions — what one athlete called “sports prison” — put China’s zero covid policies on display in what some saw as an attempt to appear superior to the rest of the world, which had suffered millions more cases and deaths. Vic Chiang, Eva Dou, Lily Kuo, Lyric Li and Christian Shepherd contributed to this report.

Asia

What is China’s ‘zero covid’ policy and why did it trigger protests?

By Bryan Pietsch

Updated November 29, 2022 at 8:07 a.m. EST|Published November 29, 2022 at 5:24 a.m. EST

Covid control workers, known in China as “big whites” for their protective suits, disinfect the banks of the Liangma River in Beijing on Monday, not long after anti-lockdown protests happened in that area. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

China’s covid restrictions, which have been in place in some form since the pandemic began there in January 2020, have led to widespread discontent in the world’s most populous country. That unease bubbled over into protests against the rules and restrictions last weekend.

Here’s what to know about China’s “zero covid” policy.