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Chinese officials claimed on Thursday that coronavirus fatalities have dropped by almost 80 percent since the beginning of January, indicating the vast wave of infections sweeping the country is quickly coming to an end.
China’s state-run Global Times on Wednesday boasted of a “joyful, bustling Chinese New Year” in the city of Wuhan – Ground Zero for the worldwide pandemic – thanks to China’s “proactive [Chinese coronavirus] optimization.”
The Global Times boasted that China supposedly defeated the original Chinese coronavirus outbreak with strict lockdowns, and now Wuhan was celebrating a second victory over the Omicron variant achieved with “optimized” policies:
Hundreds of thousands of people lined up on Monday morning outside the Yellow Crane Tower, the city’s iconic landmark that was temporarily closed during the Chinese New Year in 2020 as part of the city’s epidemic prevention and control measures. In the east square of the Yellow Crane Tower, some of classic plays of Han Show, referring to elegant Chinese traditional culture presented in the creative and thrilling form of live performance, were staged, and from the Chinese New Year’s Eve, about 60 percent of the visitors to the tower were from outside Wuhan.
The joyful hustle and bustle in 2023 strikes a sharp contrast from the images of empty and quiet streets during the Spring Festival three years ago, which also became a reminder for local residents about how hard Chinese people have been fighting the epidemic with confidence and solidarity.
A 34-year-old local resident surnamed Wang said the festival atmosphere was palpable in shopping malls with red lanterns, decorations and joyful background music. “In cinema, we can finally enjoy the movie with popcorns and milk tea, like we did before the epidemic started,” she told the Global Times on Wednesday.
“Optimization” is the Chinese Communist Party’s euphemism for the extremely sudden abandonment of not only city-wrecking lockdowns, but virtually all pandemic precautions, in December.
