Nearly three years and millions of deaths later, polities across the globe are still wrestling with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. But if most of the world appears eager to hastily move on from the “after times” so as to get to a new “before” era — to remove masks, enjoy global sporting events, and find a balance between epidemic preparedness and normalcy — one country has been insistent on doing the exact opposite.
Meet China’s controversial “zero covid” policy, a set of stringent city-wide lockdowns, forced quarantines, and mass testing meant to keep the country’s infections as low as possible against a mandate-less domestic backdrop defined by low vaccination and herd immunity rates. The government’s commitment to minimizing cases of a disease that’s arguably on track to become endemic, particularly in its sometimes draconian application of restrictions, has left behind a smattering of tragic stories: a bus on its way to compulsive quarantine that crashed, killing 27; residents urged to remain inside buildings during earthquakes; ethnic minorities in border regions, already antagonized by the regime, who faced alleged food shortages; residents of locked-down cities who reported orders to adhere to protocol and stay inside even as a massive earthquake unfolded.