For about two years now, certain countries have crafted their pandemic-response policies with the philosophy of “Covid Zero” — the notion that a much more aggressive approach to lockdowns could hold off the spread of Covid-19 forever. Many voices here, including Michael Brendan Dougherty, Rich Lowry, and the Editors, argued that “Covid Zero” was a terribly wrongheaded approach and fundamentally unworkable. It restricts people’s most basic rights, makes everyone miserable, inflicts catastrophic economic damage, and sooner or later Covid-19 would slip through and cause an outbreak anyway.
Others were unconvinced. “Why the World Needs China’s COVID Zero Policy,” declared Bloomberg News on February 8.
To the extent Chinese health statistics can be trusted — which isn’t much — the country is now experiencing its worst Covid-19 outbreak since Wuhan, as “health officials said 2,125 cases were reported across 58 cities in 19 of 31 mainland provinces, marking the fourth consecutive day China reported more than 1,000 daily local cases. More than 10,000 cases have been reported since the latest outbreak began in early March.”
And once again, Chinese authorities are attempting to lock everyone in their homes until the outbreak passes: “Two major Chinese cities — northeastern industrial hub Changchun and southern economic hub Shenzhen — are under lockdown, with more than 26 million residents forbidden from leaving their homes.” Chinese vaccines didn’t work all that well against regular Covid-19, and they appear to be even less effective against Omicron.
A country cannot wall itself off from Covid-19, no matter how hard it may try. The virus is just too contagious, too easily passed, even with the most draconian masking and social-distancing policies in place. A much better approach is to vaccinate and boost as many people as possible with effective vaccines, take precautions to protect the most vulnerable, and let everyone live their lives. For most people, Omicron will feel like a typical winter cold; the death rate for the fully vaccinated is effectively zero. America just endured a brutal Omicron wave, with more than 800,000 new cases per day reported during a stretch in mid January. (And that figure is an undercount, because not everyone who tested positive went to a doctor.) But the Omicron wave passed, and America is now averaging just 34,000 new cases per day.
More than 216 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and more than 254 million have at least one shot. About 96 million Americans have a booster. Partially overlapping with those totals are the 81 million Americans who caught Covid-19 and who have some degree of natural immunity. The American response to Covid-19 made all kinds of mistakes and stumbles along the way, but in March 2022, our population is now largely protected and the pandemic is now largely behind us.
Meanwhile, China’s still shutting down cities and locking people in their homes.
Through lockdowns, you can postpone a community’s run-in with Omicron, but so far there’s little evidence you can prevent it forever.