China’s zero COVID policy could last until 2023 despite vaccine campaign: expert – National

A campaign to vaccinate the elderly has sparked hopes that China will roll back its stringent virus measures that prompted protesters to demand the resignation of President Xi We are facing difficult hurdles and up to a year of hard work before Virus Zero is over.

Stock markets rose after the National Health Commission announced a long-awaited campaign on Tuesday. Low vaccination coverage is one of the biggest obstacles to ending restrictions that have kept millions of people at home, slowed the economy and kept most visitors out of China. Health officials have not indicated how long it will take.

Vaccination campaigns will take months, and China will need to build hospitals and develop a long-term virus strategy, health experts and economists warn. They say “COVID-zero” is likely to last until mid-2023 and possibly into 2024.

“China is not currently in a position to move from a ‘no-virus’ policy to a ‘live with the virus’ policy,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics. ‘The medical capacity is very weak’

China, where the virus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, is the last major country to stop the contagion once and for all. Others are trying to ease controls and live with a virus that has killed at least 6.6 million people worldwide and sickened about 650 million.

Protesters in China have accused the ruling Communist Party of showing no way out of restrictions that have repeatedly closed businesses and schools and cut off access to neighborhoods. Regulations keep the number of cases lower than in other countries, but it is considered excessive by the public and scientists.

Families who have been confined to their homes for up to four months say they lack reliable access to food and medicine. Some struggle to get treatment for other medical problems. Authorities have faced public outrage over reports that her two children, who were under quarantine, have died. After parents said antiviral controls were hampering their efforts to get emergency medical care.

The most widespread protests in decades erupted on Friday after a fire in northwestern Urumqi killed at least 10 people. This prompted angry questions online that firefighters and fleeing victims may have been blocked by locked doors or other controls. The dead have become the focus of public outrage over the human cost of ‘zero COVID’.

The ruling party eased some restrictions this week, promising to make the restrictions less disruptive, following protests in Shanghai, Beijing and at least six other major cities. But party leaders said they were sticking to “no coronavirus” and gave no indication of when that would end.

On Wednesday, the Health Commission reported 37,828 new cases in the past 24 hours. This includes 33,540 without symptoms. The official death toll is 5,233 out of 319,536 confirmed cases, and 1.1 million deaths out of nearly 100 million cases in the US.

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Beijing has tried to discredit protesters by accusing them of working for “foreign forces.”

On Tuesday, the ruling party’s legal committee vowed to “resolutely crack down on the intrusions and subversive activities of hostile forces.” The statement promises that Xi, who has been China’s most powerful figure since at least the 1980s, will carry out the spirit of last month’s Congress that awarded him a third five-year term as leader.

The statement made no mention of the protests and repeated the regular statements made after such party meetings. But it was a reminder of his determination to stick to the will of the ruling party and his hostility to the opposition.

The National Health Board said the campaign would encourage people over the age of 60 to get vaccinated.

Many have avoided the vaccine because of safety concerns and the low risk of transmission in China, where there have been few cases.

The commission said it would dispatch mobile vaccination units to reach people in their 70s and 80s who cannot leave their homes.

According to the commission, 9 out of 10 Chinese are vaccinated, but only 66% of people over the age of 80 receive one dose and 40% receive a booster. . 86% of those over the age of 60 have been vaccinated.

In contrast, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 93% of Americans age 65 and older are fully vaccinated, and another 2% have received at least one dose.

State media say unvaccinated older people are at “highest risk” of the virus.

Commission spokesperson Mi Feng said, “I hope the elderly friends will be proactive and complete vaccinations as soon as possible.

China uses vaccines made by domestic developers such as Sinovac and Sinopharm. In 2020, a Chinese company bought the marketing rights, pending approval of an mRNA vaccine like the one invented by Germany’s BioNTech.

Last year, the country’s top infectious disease officials admitted that these homemade vaccines are less effective.

Still, ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, an infectious disease expert from Shanghai’s COVID-19 team expressed confidence that China could emerge from COVID with an adequate vaccination programme.

“Our diagnosis, treatment and vaccines have reached a very high level,” Zhang Wenhong said at a medical conference in the southern city of Haikou on Nov. 18. “We can finally tame the coronavirus.”

But if restrictions ease and infections surge, China’s small, overworked health system, especially in poor and populous rural areas, could be overwhelmed.

According to the World Health Organization, China has 4.3 hospital beds per person, just half the average of eight in its much poorer neighbor Mongolia. 13 in Japan and 12.5 in South Korea.

“China will not fully lift COVID restrictions like other countries,” said Yu Changping, a respiratory specialist at Wuhan University People’s Hospital.

“The epidemic won’t go away in the next three or five years, and it may never go away,” said Yu. “This is a long-term challenge for China’s prevention and control.”

The outbreak, which began in October, has prompted affected communities to close shops and offices. Factories had to isolate workers from contact with the outside world.

Economists estimate that these regions account for up to one-third of China’s economic output. According to some forecasts, China’s annual growth rate will remain below 3%, and in 2021 it will be less than half of its 8.1% growth rate.

Despite the low number of cases, “there’s definitely a risk that ‘zero COVID’ will fail at this point. It’ll spread everywhere very quickly,” Williams said. “I think the response from the authorities is to go back to the plan from January/February 2020 and lock down everywhere.”