Shanghai is feeling the pressure. Households are depleted of food and drinking water (tap water is not safe in China). Apparently asymptomatic people are being dragged out of their homes by the “big whites” – officials wearing full PPE. Children with COVID-19 are separated from their parents as part of their stated government policy. Officials have defeated those who believe they have broken the rules. For 26 million people, there is no end to the lockdown. Many wonder if this means that the cost of China’s “dynamic zero policy” is too high. if, since the vast majority of cases are asymptomatic, the rules should be adjusted to treat Omicron so that people can be isolated at home. There is no possibility of such a thing. A top Chinese official recently promised “irrevocable adherence to the dynamic approach of zero COVID-19”. And it will probably work. Omicron cases in other cities have been neutralized with the same severity. For that to happen, the people of Shanghai will carry the brunt. China believes it is still a price to pay.
