Public Comment

As host of the Beijing Olympics, China has adopted a draconian policy of “lock em up” at the first sign of a Covid outbreak. Just a handful of cases can lead to an entire city being shut down for weeks. The zero COVID policy appears to be a stunning success at first sight. The US has about 150 times the number of deaths as China which is four times our size. But according to one of America's top medical experts, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, this policy may be a ticking time bomb ready to explode. His thesis is as follows: The Zero-Covid policy is based upon the notion that COVID will vanish or somehow won't be a threat going forward. 

The current policy leaves their people unprotected from population- based immunity because they've prevented the coronavirus from coming into the country. Furthermore, their vaccines are not very effective at inducing herd immunity. China has a population of 1.4 billion and about 7 million hospital beds which means the hospitals would be overwhelmed in the absence of physician offices like the US and other countries. So, if a virus outbreak occurs it will spread quickly, and likely mutate with variants and knowing their penchant for foreign travel soon could overwhelm the whole world.  

Finally, the Zero-Covid has a very sinister aspect. Activists who are critical of government policies can be quickly locked under the pretext of protecting the general population.