China will stick to a zero-covid policy, for now

NEARLY TWO years into the covid-19 pandemic, China’s propaganda machine is locked in a futile argument with the outside world. The row is about whether this giant country is paying too high a price for its “zero-covid” policy. China’s attempts to eliminate the virus, rather than merely manage it, are certainly costly. They have largely closed China’s borders for 19 months. Dozens of city districts, towns and counties are enduring lockdowns as the highly contagious Delta variant and an early cold snap cause a flare-up of infections. There are several hundred cases of the disease nationwide. Many of them are local transmissions rather than imports from abroad, underscoring Delta’s perils. Controls include roadblocks manned by police in protective suits, closed schools, cancelled trains and testing of millions of residents.

With officials facing punishment for cases on their watch, grassroots harshness abounds. The northern city of Heihe has declared a “people’s war”, with rewards of up to 100,000 yuan ($15,600) for residents who report such pandemic crimes as illegal hunting. A county in Inner Mongolia locked nearly 10,000 tourists in hotels for two weeks to smother an outbreak. Two pharmacies in suburban Beijing lost their licences for selling fever-reducing medicines to a couple without logging their names in a virus-tracking database. The customers, who had earlier visited areas with covid cases and later tested positive, are being prosecuted for failing to report to a fever clinic. Citing possible transmission risks, officials in cities including Chengdu, Harbin and Wuxi entered the homes of quarantined locals and killed their pet cats.