Can China's merciless 'Covid Army' handle Omicron?

The People's Republic of China has a Zero-Covid policy. That means no contamination is allowed. The government has deployed hundreds of thousands of government employees to enforce that policy as a kind of 'army'.

The 2022 Olympics took place in Beijing under great tension. China wanted to show the world that it had the right approach to the pandemic.

During the Games, Beijing, like other sports venues, was hermetically sealed. "All that visitors to Beijing see is what can be seen within the China-created Covid-free bubble," the BBC reported.

Extra strict restrictions and massive Covid-19 testing determined life in some parts of the Chinese capital.

But it can always be stricter. Read more about the case of the city of Xi'an.

Strict Chinese policies have helped to contain the virus in recent years. However, the "draconian" methods of China's "Covid military" are being questioned by critics, including the New York Times.

The city of Xi'an, the capital of northwestern Shaanxi province, went into lockdown for several weeks in late December and early January. It was described as the biggest lockdown since Wuhan in 2019.

Xi'an is one of the historical capitals of China. Almost 13 million people live there.

The city is also home to the mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor and the world-famous Terracotta Army.

The provincial capital had an average of 135 new Covid cases per day and virtually no deaths at the end of December, according to Johns Hopkins University.

That figure was more than enough for the Chinese authorities to close the city in December 2021. Residents were given little time to prepare.

By comparison, the Spanish capital Madrid at the same time had an average of 12,000 new cases a day, while the city only has half the population of Xi'an. Madrid was not in lockdown

Or think of Amsterdam in January 2022: about 23,000-26,000 positive tests per week in a city that is fifteen times smaller than Xi'an. And yet the city remained open there too.

During the weeks of the lockdown, there was critical talk from the people of Xi'an. That was not easy, because the Chinese authorities closely monitor social media. However, The Guardian reported that, through online platforms such as Weibo, the residents of Xi'an expressed their dismay.

They mainly complained about food shortages and dangerous hospital delays. CNN reported that a heavily pregnant woman who required treatment at Xi'an Gaoxin Hospital was turned away on New Year's Eve for failing to show a Covid test.

The woman lost her baby, which caused a lot of outrage on social media. The hospital staff told CNN that they had to reject the pregnant woman due to governmental protocol.

The BBC painted a bleak picture: volunteers provided meals to locals, but there appeared to not be enough food for everyone. The people who ran out had to exchange their possessions for food.

In another case, reported by the New York Times, a young man was beaten up by two officers that caught him trying to break the lockdown. The young man said he hadn't eaten for several days.

The 'Covid army' consists not only of officers and bureaucrats but also of internet users who seek out and tackle critical voices.

Incidentally, such internet censorship is not new in China. You can even get into trouble there with something as innocuous as a picture of Winnie the Pooh.

Much of the criticism that was posted online has since been removed from social media or buried under an avalanche of comments defending the Chinese government and its policies.

Meanwhile, more than 40,000 Xi'an residents have been forced to move to special quarantine "hotels."

"For officials, suppressing the virus comes first," writes New York Times China correspondent Li Yuan. "People's life, well-being and dignity come much later."

The Chinese authorities have responded in their own way to the criticism that has circulated. They have fired a number of senior officials in Xi'an's government. One of them is the director general of the Gaoxin hospital.

The head of Xi'an's health commission has formally apologized to the woman who lost her child. Online comments, picked up by the New York Times, report that it is mainly the lower-ranking officials who are being scapegoated. Those who were really responsible for the measures remained unaffected.

After a few weeks of strict lockdown, corona cases in the city have been reduced to a minimum. Slowly, the government has reopened communication with the outside world and daily life in Xi'an.

There is no denying that China's actions have been effective, especially when compared to some of the mistakes the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western countries have made in fighting the virus.

However, there is a tension between, on the one hand, a zero-covid policy and, on the other hand, the individual freedom of citizens.

Some fear China's zero-covid policy is an obstacle to making the pandemic endemic. In this way, the country prevents the virus from becoming a constant but only weak scourge of daily life.

Yanzhong Huang of the International Relations Council told CNN that the downsides of the zero-Covid policy will become apparent as a more contagious strain enters the country. That is almost unavoidable.

"China is neither epidemiologically nor psychologically prepared for the Omikron variant," Huang told CNN. "We don't know if it's feasible to deal with multiple transferable variants."

A month after the end of the Winter Games, which had been quiet in terms of corona policy, a new peak in the number of Covid-19 cases can be seen. Huang was right: China's zero-Covid policy is no match for Omicron.

Severe clusters of the Omikron variant can be found in the cities of Shanghai, Qingdao, Dongguan and Hong Kong. As Bloomberg reports, authorities in densely populated cities and economic hubs "are faced with the complicated task of controlling the number of cases without imposing serious disruptions."