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A30 world news
Diahuebs 11 November 2021

As many try living with virus, China keeps up zero tolerance

zero-tolerance approach, an-
nounced last month a cau- Videos of a 21-month-old
tious plan to ease restric- boy with round cheeks who
tions, despite a simmering has been tested 78 times have
outbreak. Australia, Thailand circulated widely online. The
and Singapore — all of which boy’s father declined an in-
imposed severe travel restric- terview but confirmed he
tions for much of the pan- shot the videos, which have
demic — have also begun to inspired empathy, but have
open their borders. also been used by state media
as propaganda to show how
China, by contrast, slashed tough Chinese citizens are.
the number of international
passenger flights allowed One Ruili resident, who gave
into the country by 21% last only his last name Xu, said
month to 408 flights per he’s lost count of how many
week until late March, while tests he’s taken. At the height
increasing the number of car- of one lockdown, commu-
go flights by 28%. nity volunteers threatened
to fine him when he went to
In Singapore, which started throw out the trash.
allowing quarantine-free en-
try to fully vaccinated travel- To leave the city, he must pay
ers from certain countries, for seven days of hotel quar-
the number of new cases has antine — just go to a town
(AP) — Wang Lijie predictable. Unlucky travel- Yanzhong Huang, a senior jumped to thousands a day 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.
planned to spend three ers can find themselves in fellow at the Council on For- from less than 100 before. The restrictions have devas-
days in the Gobi Desert the wrong place at the wrong eign Relations. But most are not winding up tated his business, which sells
last month to take in the time, like the tourists in the in the hospital. jade from Myanmar.
area’s famous poplar for- Gobi Desert, some of whom It’s impossible to tell how
est as its trees turned a were bused 18 hours to fin- much popular support the “It’s just completely unrealis- The Ruili government an-
golden yellow. ish their quarantine in an- policies have since opinion tic to think that you can stay nounced in late October
other city. People from Bei- polls are rare and criticism at zero,” said Dale Fisher, that it would give 1,000 yuan
Instead, the Beijing resident jing have complained online often censored. When Zhang a professor in the National (about $150) to residents
has been stuck for more than about leaving for a work trip Wenhong, a doctor in Shang- University of Singapore’s who had experienced hard-
three weeks, much of it in and not being able to return hai who has been compared medical school. ship, and that it would allow
quarantine, after authorities home. to top American health of- small- and medium-sized
discovered a cluster of CO- ficial Anthony Fauci, briefly But even if only a small per- businesses to defer loan pay-
VID-19 cases in a nearby city. In a sign of the effect the raised the prospect of living centage of infected people ments.
He was among more than regulations can have even with the virus, he was shut end up in hospitals, that could
9,000 tourists who became on thriving businesses, the down by official criticism and be a problem in China, with In the Xinjiang region in
trapped in Ejin Banner, a re- wildly popular hotpot restau- a plagiarism investigation. its huge population — and China’s west, Li Hui has been
mote part of China’s Inner rant chain, Haidilao, decided would be especially compli- sealed up for about a month
Mongolia region that is in the to shutter 300 outlets in part But the head of China’s Cen- cated for a government that in the city of Yili, where a few
Gobi. because of the pandemic and ter for Disease Control, Gao has staked its reputation on cases were discovered in early
is scaling back a plan to add Fu, recently suggested the keeping numbers very low. October.
As vaccination rates rise in 1,200 new ones. The strain country could open up once
many parts of the world and has been particularly felt in it is 85% vaccinated — a sign “I think what the govern- His mother, who lives in a
even countries that previous- places like Ruili, a city in the government is aware that ment leaders, and scholars nearby village, twisted her
ly had strict COVID-con- the southwest that has been at least some are eager for and public health officials wrist, but initially could not
tainment strategies gingerly locked down repeatedly this that. are worried about (is), even come into the city for treat-
ease restrictions, China is year. a small opening may lead to ment because of the restric-
doubling down on its zero- In the last three and a half bigger outbreaks on a much tions. After much pleading,
tolerance policy. But for authorities in Bei- weeks, Wang has had 18 larger scale,” said Huang, of he got an ambulance to take
jing, control over the virus tests for COVID-19. Yet, he the Council on Foreign Rela- her to a hospital a week after
China pioneered that ap- has become a point of pride, isn’t complaining. He’s able tions. her injury. He still can’t visit
proach — of strict lock- a potent tool of propaganda to work remotely and has her.
downs, multiple rounds of — and proof, they say, of a started a vlog of his daily life, Some of the most dramatic
mass testing and centralized superior form of governance. interacting with residents of examples of China’s policy “I don’t know how long Yili’s
quarantine — during the They often trumpet their Inner Mongolia online. come from Ruili, which is residents can endure,” he
world’s first major outbreak success at keeping deaths bordered on three sides by said. “I really can’t endure it
of the coronavirus in Wuhan. relatively low, especially in “Regardless of the time you Myanmar and has struggled anymore.”
And it continues now, even as contrast to the United States, sacrificed, or how much to keep the virus at bay.
it says it has fully vaccinated whose COVID-19 response money you spent, in the face
77% of its 1.4 billion people the Foreign Ministry spokes- of life, in front of health,
and started giving booster man has called a “total fail- those things are not worth
shots. ure.” mentioning,” said Wang. “For
everyone’s health, for society
“The cost is truly rather high, China has reported about to be more stable, some peo-
but compared with not man- 4,600 deaths — compared ple have to make sacrifices.”
aging it, relaxing (the zero- to more than 755,000 in the
tolerance policy), then that U.S., a country with less than But China’s strategy sets it
cost is even higher,” Zhong a quarter the population. apart, as many countries shift
Nanshan, a top government to trying to live with the vi-
doctor, said in a recent TV “It’s becoming part of the of- rus, especially as it continues
interview. ficial narrative that promotes to mutate and vaccines can-
that approach and links that not fully prevent infection.
The impact of the restrictions to the superiority of the Chi- Most notably, New Zealand,
is not widespread — but un- nese political system,” said which had long pursued a