Life returned to normal in China after the initial wave of COVID-19 ravaged Wuhan. Though not officially called a zero-COVID policy at the time, the control measures were born out of a goal of eliminating COVID-19 from the country. With only the aid of these nonpharmaceutical interventions, the Chinese government was very successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 after the initial wave hit Wuhan.įrom the time China started recording cases in late December 2019, until the government ended its initial period of lockdown in April 2020, the government documented 82,000 cases of COVID-19 and just over 3,300 deaths. When COVID-19 emerged, the Chinese government was quick to institute mask-wearing policies and testing regimens, and it locked down the city of Wuhan and the surrounding region where the coronavirus originated.
Public health campaigns and control of emerging disease in China are entirely reliant on and directed by the government, which promotes health both for the good of the people and the nation. Combined with questions about the efficacy of China’s vaccines and comparatively low vaccination rates, many public health experts think that China will be hit hard by the coronavirus as the country rapidly lifts its zero-COVID policy. The result is that China has not followed the standard path of a pandemic where people slowly gain immunity through exposure or vaccination, allowing society to open up over time. I am a medical anthropologist who studies public health trends in China from an epidemiologic and social perspective.Īfter largely containing the coronavirus in 2020, China began enforcing a strict zero-COVID policy leading up to the Beijing Olympics in 2022. residents have been infected with the coronavirus, COVID-19 cases seem to be reaching somewhat of a steady state and normal life has mostly resumed. SARS-CoV-2 emerged with a bang, but thanks to a strong vaccination effort and the fact that a large portion of U.S. The situation in China stands in stark contrast to the trajectory of the pandemic in the U.S.
7, 2022, as rates of COVID-19 are on the rise in major cities, following protests demanding the end of zero-COVID policies. The Chinese Communist Party announced these changes on Dec. This article originally appeared on The Conversation.Īfter nearly three years of aiming to eliminate COVID-19 through mass lockdowns, robust contact tracing programs and international travel bans, the Chinese government has announced it is rolling back the “zero-COVID” policies that helped suppress the spread of the coronavirus in the country. Elanah Uretsky is an associate professor of international and global studies at Brandeis.
0 kommentar(er)
