I was wondering the other day about this question but have no good sense myself. Moreover, I’m not even sure just what good metrics might be applied to attempt to assess the question.
Earlier today I was thinking of asking but decided against. However, I just came across a new story that seems to raise the question from those in China. Here is the relevant quote related to a tracking wrist band one woman living in Beijing found on her doorstep:
I have accepted lockdowns, forced COVID-19 tests and health codes, but this thing feels like surveillance just for the sake of surveillance.
While the story doesn’t clearly say it was provided by some national or provincial health department it makes no suggestion that some criminal or scamming (non-governmental at least) actor might have been involved.
Adding to the recent “flash” protest against Xi in general but including the policy I thought I might query here.
Often China is held up as something of a poster child for the state capacity story. That might imply the policy is now more about social control than actually managing COVID. But it could also just be a case of unintended consequences, at least in a perceptual form, rather than the intended goal now. I could certainly see an argument made for having locked itself into such a policy as China’s health system and population are probably poorly suited to living with COVID that the rest of the world has started moving to specifically due to its earlier success in containment (even accounting for gross under reporting). Certainly one might think relaxing the policy and then seeing a major outbreak and overloaded hospitals would be the last thing Xi needs going into his selection process.
Any have thoughts on just how to tease out the likelihood or policy as advertised from health policy used for social control purposes given it seems quite possible that the two purposes could be pursed under the same policy simultaneously.
[Question] How much of China’s Zero COVID policy is actually about COVID?
I was wondering the other day about this question but have no good sense myself. Moreover, I’m not even sure just what good metrics might be applied to attempt to assess the question.
Earlier today I was thinking of asking but decided against. However, I just came across a new story that seems to raise the question from those in China. Here is the relevant quote related to a tracking wrist band one woman living in Beijing found on her doorstep:
While the story doesn’t clearly say it was provided by some national or provincial health department it makes no suggestion that some criminal or scamming (non-governmental at least) actor might have been involved.
Adding to the recent “flash” protest against Xi in general but including the policy I thought I might query here.
Often China is held up as something of a poster child for the state capacity story. That might imply the policy is now more about social control than actually managing COVID. But it could also just be a case of unintended consequences, at least in a perceptual form, rather than the intended goal now. I could certainly see an argument made for having locked itself into such a policy as China’s health system and population are probably poorly suited to living with COVID that the rest of the world has started moving to specifically due to its earlier success in containment (even accounting for gross under reporting). Certainly one might think relaxing the policy and then seeing a major outbreak and overloaded hospitals would be the last thing Xi needs going into his selection process.
Any have thoughts on just how to tease out the likelihood or policy as advertised from health policy used for social control purposes given it seems quite possible that the two purposes could be pursed under the same policy simultaneously.