Covid-19: China suffers surge in cases after easing zero COVID lockdowns. Here's why and what we can learn.

Author: S. Jeffery

While the world has practically moved on from Covid, the Chinese government and its people still struggle with a recurring surge in cases due to the harsh lockdowns and the consequences that follow when the restrictions are eased. 

While the official data shows a drop in new cases, the information no longer covers large parts of the Chinese population, since the government ended mandatory testing for its citizens on Wednesday (Dec 7, 2022). On Friday (Dec 9, 2022) however, there were several cases of the virus being reported in schools and businesses.

Eased restrictions

The easing of China's "zero COVID" policy comes as official economic data show that the country is experiencing an economic slump at this time. Imports into the country plummeted by 10.9 per cent compared to last November's figures. Notably, motor vehicle sales fell by a whopping 26.5 per cent in October, a sure sign of weakened demand in the second largest economy.

Well of course this would happen! Xi's government "zero COVID" policy confined millions of people to their homes. If the people can't go out to work and earn and spend, obviously the economy will begin to suffer. It didn't help either that many Chinese out of frustration because of these restrictions took to the streets to protest the draconian measures and even dared to demand that President Xi resign! The international community, partners of the Chinese Communist Party had to sit up and take notice of what was happening, many calling for an end to the oppressive measures. Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chastised the Chinese government for clamping down on the protesters of the harsh restrictions.

On November 11, Xi’s government began to loosen controls after promising to reduce their cost and disruption. The relaxing of the restrictions have not yet borne any economic fruit as people are staying away from popular public areas and have decided to stay home

“There’s very few people coming in because there’s so many cases,” said Gang Xueping, a waitress in a Beijing restaurant. “The country’s just opened up. The first one or two months is definitely going to be serious. Nobody’s used to this yet.” (Associated Press)

Imagine, being in a country so locked down that one needs time to mentally adjust to going outside again? To get used to freely moving about again? That's just crazy.

According to a report by consultants Neil Thomas and Laura Gloudeman of the Eurasia Group, it is to be expected that easing "zero COVID" would lead to an initial surge in cases just like what happened in the US and other countries when lockdowns were lifted.

"Relaxing COVID controls will lead to greater outbreaks, but Beijing is unlikely to return to the extended blanket lockdowns that crashed the economy earlier this year."

That may be true but the damage has already been done. It may take months before the Chinese economy revs back to life, and any further measure implemented that is a partial re-introduction if not full imposing of "zero COVID" could be detrimental to the country's growth. Zero COVID disrupted every day life of the Chinese people and depressed economic activity, as is evidenced by the numbers I shared above.

Sweden's case

New research coming out has shown the Swedes being vindicated in their approach to the pandemic.

According to a graph (I have labeled Graph A) done by Johns Hopkins University, the mortality rate of the Swedish population is quite low compared to other countries.

Graph A 
From ourworldindata.org

As you can see via Graph A, in comparison to other countries with well known lockdown policies, as the pandemic raged on, the number of deaths in Sweden decreased as their measures began to deliver success.

So what did the Swedes do?

Firstly, they kept the primary schools open. Yup, gotta have the children learning even during a pandemic. They realised that cases of severe COVID were very low among children, so they decided to keep schools open. This has certainly paid off, the Swedish children are far ahead in learning compared to their peers in other countries such as Jamaica. Persons were urged to social distance but allowed to go about their daily business. Only people who felt ill were urged to stay home. Employees also had the option to work from home if possible and limit travel. In addition the elderly were urged to limit social contact. It was the government's policy to protect the elderly and immuno-compromised while maintaining the daily living standards of its people. Literally, the Swedes were allowed to get on with their lives but to be cautious. And? It worked.

Jamaica, Jamaica: a comparison

In 2020, face-to-face classes were suspended island-wide in Jamaica and children were expected to learn from home via Whatsapp or through Zoom or Google Classrooms.

During the process educators noticed that many students did not turn up for these classes and this forced the Ministry of Education to revert to a hybrid model where students would be allowed in school a few days per week and by different grades. Unfortunately, even after this was done, many children were still absent. In January 2022, after school was fully opened, but some students still had not returned, the MOE launched its Yard-to-Yard initiative to try and locate children who were not able to engage in the learning process all through out 2020 and 2021, and had still not come back to face-to-face classes. Their absence was a major concern as questions were being asked: Where were these children? What were they doing to occupy their time? The initiative trained 580 youth workers who would be deployed across the island to find and identify children who had not shown up to school and re-engage them back into the learning process.

But according to Radio Jamaica News, things didn't go as planned, for though the children were located, many of them had no interest in returning to school. To deal with this dilemma, the Ministry was planning to implement a tracking app to mark school attendance to get a more accurate view of when the students go absent.

The Radio Jamaica article also noted the frustration of Fayval Williams, Minister of Education, in reengaging the children back to school.

The Minister:

"When you look at the attendance records, we are twice the world's average in terms of absenteeism across our schools. But we want to preach to our parents, the adults in the lives of these children, that they have to continue to make an investment in education."

Read that statement again. She said Jamaica has twice the level of absenteeism in the world. This is really sad.

Sweden never had that problem. Their children were engaged and learned. I think you should read the link I shared above at 'far ahead in learning', you will realise the truth.

Sweden's economic prowess

As for the Swedish economy, it is still solid! According to the European Commission's Economic Forecast for Sweden, the country had "robust real GDP growth in the first half of 2022, supported by strong income and employment gains, during the recovery from the pandemic. Private consumption and investment were the main drivers..."

The EC however noted that Sweden had experienced a slow down in growth during the last quarter of the year because of the rise in inflation, which in turn was due to external shocks such as rising commodity prices. The economy is however projected to grow at a moderate pace into 2024. The EC also noted that the country's fiscal outlook remains strong, in spite of the pandemic, Sweden managed to enjoy "a small budget surplus" that is expected to tide them over until the inflation shocks subside.

Zero COVID

As for COVID cases, as of December 8 (the date of this article), Sweden now has only 112 active cases. Meanwhile according to Associated Press, in Hong Kong alone there were 75,000 cases over the past week, "up about 25 per cent from the previous week. But those don't include an unknown number of people who stay at home with COVID-19 symptoms and never report to the government."

Okay, you may be asking: Why wouldn't they report to the government? If they reported on themselves they would be forced to go to a quarantine camp type settings. Who would want to do that? You don't believe me?

See video below 👇👇

Instead of seeking help for their symptoms, people would rather hide them to avoid being locked up in those camps. No wonder the cases spike as people are allowed to mingle among each other. People are masking their symptoms for fear of being found out and locked up in one of those boxes. Wouldn't you?

Okay folks, you've read the article thus far. Now it's time you come to your own conclusion on the matter. I have given you enough evidence to show that the Chinese policy isn't working and never worked. Any drop in case numbers was temporary and misleading; as soon as people are given the opportunity to move about the cases would spike.

So what now? What should the Chinese government do?

Not just ease restrictions. Remove them all together and allow the people to go back to working and earning, and moving about and engaging in social gatherings and activities, that way the people can be free to participate in the country's economy again. There may be a surge in the country's cases but as more and more people get infected and recover, immunity will build up until the virus is no longer a threat.

Remember, Sweden didn't do any of those draconian measures and they are doing better than everyone expected. Goes to show that it is never good to follow the crowd. Thanks for reading folks.

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