So what is the endgame here? Covid is not going away. Does that mean that China will become an isolated island with waves of lockdowns for the next decades?
If that’s what suits the party best, probably. Communist dictatorships aren’t known for very rational policies when they need to save face on something.
That’s the question a lot of people seem to have, but think about it: they’ve already bought themselves 2 extra years of vaccine + therapeutics development, and beefing up of medical infrastructure. There’s no way they can do lockdowns forever, and they’re open about that in all the media. But there’s a point in those other trends at which opening up becomes millions of times less dangerous, and we’re just not there yet.
Force elders to vax. Build up antiviral stockpile. Maybe wait for milder strain. Roll out phased living with covid experiments by region. Take a few extra years to spare millions of deaths.
