On Monday (10th) and Tuesday (11th), the official media "People's Daily" published commentary articles for two consecutive days reiterating the importance of "dynamic clearing" of the epidemic prevention policy.
The two articles pointed out that the new crown epidemic is still at a high level, the pressure of the country's external defense against imports has increased, and the internal epidemic has the characteristics of "multiple points and wide areas".
Since China is a country with a large population, even though Omicron's case fatality rate and severe disease rate are low, its ability to escape immunity and spread is very strong. It should not be compared with influenza. If it causes a large number of infections and multiplied by a large base, it will also cause huge human lives. casualties.
The article emphasizes that the current normalized epidemic prevention policy is in line with national conditions and science, and it is also effective. China has the foundation, conditions, and ability to continue to implement the dynamic zero policy.
China must remain vigilant against the epidemic, increase confidence and patience in its existing policies, overcome paralysis and war weariness, and continue to fight the epidemic to the end.
The article concludes that the epidemic is not over yet, there is no way out for "laying down", and persistence is victory.
It is difficult to change the epidemic situation after the "20th National Congress"
The People's Daily commentary was published just before the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
It has been three years since the epidemic broke out, and since the Omicron variant has caused static management in many places this year, there have been more and more discussions in the mainland public opinion field about whether to change the epidemic prevention and control policy.
For example, at the end of last month, mainland media personality Hu Xijin bluntly stated on Weibo that rational discussions around epidemic prevention policies had decreased, calling on experts to speak more.
As the "Twenty National Congress" is approaching, many people in the Mainland believe that this may be an opportunity for change.
Hong Kong politicians such as Tam Yiu-chung also expressed that there is news that the mainland's customs clearance conditions for Hong Kong may be relaxed after the "20th National Congress".
"People's Daily" has continuously issued articles to reiterate "dynamic clearing", which seems to have poured cold water on these speculations from the outside world.
The article pointed out that China is a large country with a population of more than 1.4 billion, coupled with unbalanced regional development and insufficient medical resources, relaxation of prevention and control will inevitably increase the risk of infection for susceptible groups.
(Xinhua News Agency)
The statement of the article is actually similar to the content of the press conference of the National Health and Medical Commission on September 29, which can be said to be in line with the official position on prevention and control.
However, officials reiterated that the current practice at best does not necessarily mean that it will not necessarily change in the future.
For example, in February this year, the official media still pointed out that "dynamic clearing" was a scientific choice for Hong Kong to fight the epidemic.
However, with the changes after the fifth wave of the epidemic, Hong Kong has gradually opened up to the outside world, and central officials have also expressed support for this.
Moreover, in addition to just looking at the declaration of insisting on epidemic prevention, we also need to analyze the official arguments for this, in order to more accurately understand the possible direction of the epidemic prevention policy.
It is worth noting that officials believe that the reasons for maintaining a dynamic reset, such as "China is a country with a large population", "insufficient and uneven medical resources" cannot fundamentally change in the short term, and other reasons such as "Omicron variants are very High escape immunity and transmissibility” are related to the progress of medical epidemic prevention.
In the short term, the only factor that the government may take the initiative to change is to increase the vaccination rate. However, when discussing the epidemic prevention policy, the official has never regarded the vaccination rate as a standard for formulating an epidemic prevention policy. It is also only regarded as part of the whole set of epidemic prevention plans in the "Proceedings (Ninth Edition)".
And mainland experts rarely define vaccination rate as a key figure for open epidemic prevention.
So all in all, it is difficult for us to predict when the mainland will adjust and relax its epidemic prevention policies and further open up to the outside world.
Unpredictable opening of the mainland
However, because the schedule for resuming quarantine-free customs clearance with the mainland has yet to see the light of day, the Hong Kong government must make all kinds of preparations, not just waiting for the mainland to open to the outside world.
Hong Kong should take the initiative to change, turn passive into active, and turn waiting into progress.
This includes enhancing its own quarantine capacity to meet certain epidemic prevention requirements on the mainland.
Even if the complete quarantine and quarantine clearance is not achieved, it can make the transit more convenient.
For example, the "pre-isolation" (also known as "reverse isolation") measures discussed by the two governments earlier, passengers who want to enter the mainland can first undergo customs quarantine in Hong Kong to replace part of the quarantine in the mainland.
In addition, a new system can also be studied to allow travelers who want to enter the mainland to actively declare nucleic acid or rapid test results a few days before entering or entering the pre-quarantine, thereby replacing part of the number of quarantine days.
After Hong Kong opened to the outside world, the flow of inbound and outbound people and imported cases have increased significantly.
On the other hand, many experts say that Hong Kong is close to reaching herd immunity. In addition, Hong Kong is gradually opening to the outside world. It is expected that more people will flow in and out of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong should do scientific research in the next time to review the effect of the immune barrier on Omicron and subsequent variants.
For example, more inflows and outflows means more imported cases, but how much of an impact this has on local transmission, hospitalizations, and deaths is variable.
The government and academia can strengthen the analysis of the data. If it can be proved that Hong Kong's immune barrier can play a certain role, it can be used as a condition for further opening up Hong Kong to the mainland.
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