An alternative to COVID-19 pandemic: China’s ‘Dynamic Zero-COVID’ Policy

Currently, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world has exceeded 600 million. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global excess mortality is estimated to reach 18.2 million, and the excess mortality rate is 120 per 100,000 people; meanwhile, China’s excess mortality rate is 0.6 per 100,000 people, according to a paper published in March in The Lancet, an internationally renowned comprehensive medicine journal.

The “coexistence with the virus” policy in some countries has caused the virus to mutate and accelerate its spread in the past three years, and the global epidemic is still at a high level. First, what is the “Dynamic Zero-COVID” policy?

“Dynamic Zero-COVID” refers to the dynamic detection and elimination of COVID-19 cases, which prevents the COVID-19 virus from further spreading in the infected region and other areas. “Dynamic Zero-COVID” does not require absolute zero infection, but seeks to control the spread of COVID and prevent a large-scale outbreak or rebound with scientific and precise prevention and control, at the lowest social costs and in the shortest possible time.

Why does China choose the “Dynamic Zero-COVID” policy? The total population and the aging population of China are both very huge, and there are a large number of people with background diseases, who are more likely to develop severe and fatal COVID cases than the general population. If the epidemic prevention were lifted, large numbers of people would be infected and killed. According to articles in the journal Nature Medicine, there would be at least 112 million infections and nearly 1.6 million deaths if China copied some countries’ coexistence with COVID policy.

Therefore, China made and implemented the “Dynamic Zero-COVID” policy to prioritize the safety and health of Chinese people, maintain a high sense of responsibility to its people, and explore the feasible policy that best suits China’s national conditions and scientific laws. What is the effect of the “Dynamic Zero-COVID” policy? While the Omicron variant, with increased transmissibility and concealment, is endemic, China immediately coordinated and deployed its resources in examination, epidemiological survey, transportation, isolation, and hospitalization, effectively curbed the spread of the epidemic, and restored the society’s production and daily life.

In 2021, China’s economic aggregate exceeded 110 trillion RMB and its year-on-year attracted investment increased by 14.9%, hitting a record high, which further consolidates its world economy “stabilizer” and “power supply” position. In the first quarter of 2022, China’s foreign investment still maintained a double-digit high growth, a 25.6% year-on-year increase. Facing severe challenges of the epidemic, the “Belt and Road” construction did not press the pause button, but moved forward against the wind, and demonstrated strong resilience and vitality.

In 2021, China’s trade in goods with countries along the “Belt and Road” reached 11.6 trillion RMB, which was a year-on-year increase of 23.6%, a new high in eight years, and accounted for 29.7% of China’s total foreign trade.

In fact, some countries adopted a “coexistence with the COVID” policy simply because they were unable and incompetent to prevent and control the pandemic, rather than not wanting to. After various attempts, these countries could not find an ideal strategy to control the epidemic and thus simply chose to “coexist with the COVID”, which was precisely the result of their failure to timely and effectively control the epidemic in the early stage and lost the opportunity of “dynamic zero-COVID”.

From the science aspect, it is the “coexistence with the COVID” that increased the risk of the emergence of new variants and caused the continuation of the global epidemic. Vaughn Cooper, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, and Lee Harrison, professor of epidemiology, infectious diseases and microbiology at the same university, pointed out in their article published on the Dialogue website that the emergence of more contagious variant of COVID is due to the out-of-control spread.

The huge infected population has given COVID vast opportunities for mutation. That is to say, it was precisely because of the uncontrolled spread of COVID, where the mutated virus broke the “population bottleneck” that is extremely difficult to break through, and human-to-human transmission occurred.

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