China or withdraw from the zero policy, Hong Kong is only a negative teaching material

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Wednesday (March 2), "How Will China Relax Its Zero Policy?

〉, citing news that China is considering when to withdraw from the zero-clearing policy because the development direction of therapeutic drugs, vaccines and variants is conducive to opening up.

The article pointed out that China may refer to the closed-loop management method during the Winter Olympics and partially open it up as early as this summer, or it may not officially relax its epidemic prevention policy until next summer.

The "Wall Street Journal" news mainly comes from the "Same Scientific Consensus, Different Coping Strategies-Analysis of "Coexistence with the Virus" and "Dynamic Clearing" published on social media by Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at the beginning of this week. Zero "two countermeasures", Zeng Guang pointed out in the article that China will launch a roadmap for coexistence with the virus at the right time.

The Wall Street Journal's remarks are not groundless, and it has also caused speculation about how China will open its doors.

Opening up is the ultimate goal of the mainland

Many people in the market misunderstand the mainland's epidemic prevention policy. Some Western commentators believe that China's insistence on dynamic reset is out of the belief of President Xi Jinping, and some people ridicule China for wanting to isolate itself from the world.

However, China's anti-epidemic policy is actually to put safety first and not risk people's lives, so it will not lightly say "coexistence" until the epidemic improves significantly.

But on the other hand, the new coronavirus has spread all over the world and cannot be eliminated, so it is impossible for China to continue to clear it forever.

Zeng Guang believes that China and the West have different ways of responding to Omicron, but in essence the scientific cognition is the same, and they had differences later because of the different response situations in the early stage of the new crown epidemic.

He stressed that the rush of Western countries to coexist with the virus is too risky for China, and "it is not appropriate to dance with it".

But at the same time, he also admitted that since there is no large-scale infection in China due to the zero-clearing policy, once only relying on vaccines for defense is China's "soft underbelly", he believes that China should observe calmly and humbly, and should also learn from the experience and lessons of the West.

Zeng Guang pointed out that China will present a "roadmap for coexistence of viruses" in the near future.

Since he mentioned in the text that he should not choose to relax epidemic prevention measures in the season when respiratory infectious diseases spread in late winter and early spring, the outside world generally interpreted that the opening "will start in summer".

According to the usual logic of the implementation of Mainland policies, it is also a reasonable inference that some cities (such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, which have more exchanges with other places) will adopt a closed-loop approach for opening up pilots this summer.

Hong Kong is expected to be the subject of mainland observation

It is believed that the mainland still has to observe the experience of other places in order to decide the roadmap for opening up, and Hong Kong, which has recently suffered the fifth wave of the epidemic, is undoubtedly one of the objects to be observed.

Before the fifth wave of the epidemic, the infection ratio of Hong Kong and the mainland was very low, so it can be used as the inference for the development of the mainland after opening up.

However, before this year's active "Vaccine Needle" policy, the vaccination rate in Hong Kong was around 60%, especially for many elderly people who have not been vaccinated.

In addition, the medical system was not prepared for large-scale infections, and at the beginning of the fifth wave of the outbreak, there was no instruction to triage according to conditions, causing chaos in the medical system, and patients did not know where to go.

In terms of the results of the fifth wave of development, Hong Kong is definitely a negative teaching material.

The chaos in Hong Kong's response to the fifth wave of the epidemic will undoubtedly become a "negative teaching material" for the mainland to open up epidemic prevention.

Of course, the experience of failure can also be used as a lesson for the mainland to be more prepared to deal with the situation after opening up.

But we can't help but ask, Hong Kong is proud of a system different from that of the mainland. Do we have the advantages of this system for the mainland to learn?

Having experienced four waves of epidemics in the past two years, Hong Kong has handled it well, but it is not better than the mainland.

In addition to preventing and controlling the epidemic, Hong Kong has not been able to show the advantages of the Hong Kong system. In addition to eating the "old capital" of a financial center, it is struggling in important areas such as people's livelihood issues and economic transformation.

Hong Kong adheres to "One Country, Two Systems". The original intention was to provide more positive teaching materials, not negative ones.

The Winter Olympics explained that the human-made epidemic is raging, and the political considerations of the epidemic prevention policy cannot be gambled. The political consideration of the epidemic prevention policy is the social interest.