It Will Take Time to Return to Normal Life

This wave of the epidemic in Beijing has now lasted twenty days. For these twenty days the three of us in our household have basically been staying home. Apart from taking nucleic acid tests, buying groceries, and taking out the trash, we have not stepped outside. Our son's schooling and our own work have all moved online. Our neighborhood is classified as a precautionary zone rather than a lockdown zone, so we can come and go freely and couriers can still deliver normally. Still, we try not to go out; friends joke that our family is the model citizen, the most cooperative with the government's epidemic prevention. But what choice do we have? Our son is about to enter his senior year of high school, and we do not want to be quarantined and become a burden to him.

In these twenty days I have been to the food market three times, each time buying enough fruit and vegetables for a week. I always go at the crack of dawn, fully kitted out, because by then everyone is still asleep and the market is nearly empty. Around six in the morning, most of the vegetable vendors are not wearing masks (at other times they either won't wear one or pull it down to expose their nostrils), and nobody checks health codes at the market entrance. The community activity center is packed almost every evening, and most of the children and elderly there are not wearing masks either.

From these details I know how hard it is to achieve zero-COVID in Beijing, which is why, more than twenty days in, the city still reports forty or fifty new infections a day, sometimes more. Many people are suffering from pandemic fatigue, and with the summer heat masks feel uncomfortable, so unmasked people are everywhere and continued community transmission is unavoidable.

Taiwan has already abandoned its zero-COVID policy and intends to live with the virus quickly, but the Taiwan government's rosy calculations have also fallen through. It originally planned to ride out the peak in two or three months, but because it had held to zero-COVID for so long, many residents had grown used to that strict regime and, even after the policy was relaxed, individuals and families kept up rigorous precautions. As a result the expected timeline has been greatly extended, and the peak may not pass until next year. But with the virus mutating, who can say another wave will not arrive next year? Taiwan's healthcare system has also been strained by the recent outbreak, with frequent reports of unexpected deaths. If the mainland were to abandon zero-COVID, a great many people would likely keep strict precautions too, no different from Taiwan. So whether the mainland abandons zero-COVID or not, it will be hard for Chinese cities to quickly bring this hard period to an end.

North Korea's epidemic figures are surprising and unsurprising at once. It is surprising that the outbreak has grown so fierce, but unsurprising that, having essentially used no modern tools since the beginning, North Korea has been walking blind in the dark, so a breach was only a matter of time. Because the disease follows a course, North Korea's death peak has not yet arrived; there is no need to rush to calculate a case fatality rate.

North Korea has a population of 25 million, virtually none of whom have been vaccinated, and may now face a severe ordeal. The unvaccinated population in our country is roughly three to four times that number, and most of these unvaccinated people are high-risk groups who need protection. This situation puts enormous pressure on our pandemic defense. Many countries prioritize vaccinating these high-risk groups, but because of the cautious attitude in the early phase of our vaccination campaign, the initial eligibility criteria frightened many people off, and patients with chronic diseases dared not get vaccinated. A few isolated, coincidental reactions were taken as vaccine side effects; not only did ordinary people grow fearful, but the doctors administering vaccines, wary of disputes, preferred to err on the side of refusal, turning many high-risk people away. As a result, many high-risk groups remain unvaccinated.

In fact, international data show that the side effects of our inactivated vaccines are negligible and that most chronic diseases are not contraindications. Governments everywhere have since relaxed the earlier eligibility criteria and are urging grassroots communities to push vaccination. But many people have already formed prejudices and remain reluctant, making grassroots work very difficult. This means that once our defensive line is breached, the healthcare system will take a massive hit. Our hospitals are already overcrowded on ordinary days; if a sudden flood of infectious patients arrives, medical rationing and collapse will be inevitable.

We are effectively locked in a stalemate. Mature, China-appropriate experience and models for dealing with Omicron have not yet emerged, so for the moment it will be hard for first- and second-tier cities to return to normal life. This will affect the physical and mental health of many people and their incomes too, but there is no escaping the impact; we can only accept reality and try to make our own lives as interesting as possible.