China’s new Covid approach is to ‘let it rip,’ says analyst

Bloomberg

China seems to be embracing a fast and explosive Covid reopening, a risky approach that’s worrying observers given the vast country’s vulnerabilities.
Since embarking on a landmark shift away from its zero-tolerance policy just a week ago, China has dismantled most of its internal restrictions, casting aside the stringent playbook used to eliminate the virus for the past three years.
The rapid reversal is resulting in an eruption of cases, particularly in Beijing where the once expansive PCR testing apparatus appears to have been abandoned. The spread is so significant it’s rendered official Covid statistics all but meaningless, and seen hospitals in the capital already overwhelmed.
“Logic doesn’t seem to apply here,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief pharmaceutical analyst Sam Fazeli said in a TV interview. China’s mindset since pivoting away from Covid Zero is “there’s not so much we can do, we’ve done the best we can. We’ve got the blueprint for what the West did and what happened, so let’s just let it rip — which is what I think is going on,” Fazeli said.
The unexpected about-turn — most economists, and Bloomberg Economics, were expecting a gradual, controlled exit from Covid Zero — is raising alarm given China is in the midst of a cold winter, its elderly vaccination rate is still well below other countries and the country’s healthcare system is under-resourced.
It’s unclear whether China has had time to stockpile anti-virals and other contingencies needed to handle what top Covid adviser, Zhang Wenhong, called a “massive” looming outbreak.
The rapid shift reflects people’s frustration at Covid Zero, said Steven Lynch, managing director of the British Chamber of Commerce in China.
Snap lockdowns, frequent mass testing and mandatory quarantine for all those exposed to Covid were hallmarks of the stringent approach, which worked during the initial wave in Wuhan, but became almost impossible to maintain as the virus became more contagious in 2022.
The tough measures weighed on the world’s second-largest economy and disrupted people’s lives, culminating in a remarkable weekend of protests across China’s major cities.
“I wasn’t expecting China’s exit strategy to be so rapid,” said Lynch. “I thought it would be a gradual process. But again, you know, this speaks to the outpouring of anger and anxiety that people have had around Zero Covid.”