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China’s state-run propaganda newspaper Global Times assured readers on Wednesday that nearly three years of the Communist Party’s “zero-Covid” policy – which consisted of welding people shut in their homes and hauling thousands into quarantine camps – was “worthwhile,” as Beijing faces global alarm in the face of an apparent coronavirus case surge.
China imposed a brutal lockdown policy for years on its citizens, most dramatically shutting down entire metropolitan areas and locking people in their homes, often without food or basic medicines. According to the Chinese government’s records, the “zero-Covid” policy killed more people in China than Chinese coronavirus itself between May 26 and late November. The regime documented that three people over the age of 87 died as a result of the coronavirus in that time window, compared to dozens of suicides, starvations, people dying of lack of access to medicine, and those killed by denial of medical care at hospitals.
China finally “optimized” its “zero-Covid” policy in early December, a response to an eruption of large protests and riots across the country at the end of November. Communist Party officials insist that they are not “lying flat” – meaning reverting to pre-pandemic freedoms – but have nonetheless insisted that they would not return to city-wide lockdowns and would let people suffering mild coronavirus infections stay home, rather than imprisoning them in camps.
The protests abruptly ended following the lockdowns, but have been followed by a wave of citizen journalist reporting suggesting that China is now dealing with overflowing morgues, hospitals, and funeral homes as a mass death wave hits the country. Reports suggest that the dead are those infected with Chinese coronavirus – suffering severe infections as a result of newly exposed immune systems and their lack of access to effective vaccine products.
On Wednesday, the Global Times insisted that, despite the hardships the lockdowns created, the current situation in the country was “worth the wait.”
“Chinese people believed the three years’ fighting was not in vain, as they have been shielded until [Chinese coronavirus] variants became far less dangerous,” the state newspaper claimed, “and they are optimistic of the future and that they are sure the final shock from [Chinese coronavirus] will be weathered smoothly and orderly.
