Beijing succumbs to Covid after Xi Jinping lifts pandemic restrictions
The city of Beijing rode out the pandemic for almost three years, crushing Covid-19 outbreaks before the virus could overwhelm it. When dozens of cases flared in June 2020, the head of the Chinese capital’s Communist party committee vowed to take “the most resolute, decisive and stringent measures to block transmission and control the situation”.
The city’s defences held again in the spring when targeted measures such as localised quarantines helped it avoid a sweeping lockdown such as the one that immobilised Shanghai for eight weeks. Beijing’s party secretary, Cai Qi, a longtime ally of President Xi Jinping, was rewarded for his efforts with a promotion to the party’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in October.
Over the past week, however, China’s most important citadel has been breached. Since Xi abruptly ditched his contentious zero-Covid strategy of containment, the virus has raced through the capital’s 22mn people, even as streets remain empty and most businesses are closed.
Some Beijing residents have already begun questioning the prudence of abandoning zero-Covid with few mitigation measures in place.
“Beijing’s healthcare system isn’t ready for an outbreak like this,” the nursing home executive said. “The government invested too much in zero-Covid and too little in better healthcare.
“If residents in my nursing home get Covid and show severe symptoms, their survival depends on their underlying health and to a large degree, luck.”
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow
