Zero-Covid countries have run out of road

China has retained high level restrictions. Photo / AP

OPINION:

Government instructions to stockpile food are seldom a sign that all is well. That, nonetheless, is the message China's commerce ministry sent out last week, even though there is no underlying problem of food supply and only a handful of Covid-19 cases every day. Its directive shows the growing strain caused by China's quest for zero-Covid and the need for an exit route in the few countries that still pursue it.

Seemingly, households need a stockpile of food so they can cope with the imposition of a total lockdown, should cases of Covid-19 appear in the area. China's restrictions, which it uses to stop chains of Covid transmission altogether, have become increasingly severe. Recently, it locked tens of thousands of visitors inside Shanghai Disneyland for mass testing after discovering a case related to the theme park a day earlier.

Similar stresses are visible in the other jurisdictions that still aspire to zero-Covid, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan: they must keep their borders all but sealed, with lengthy quarantines, even as regional rivals such as Singapore, South Korea and Japan open up. New Zealand — long a zero-Covid stalwart — has begun to abandon the policy in favour of living with the virus.

During much of 2020 and 2021, zero-Covid was a triumph for the countries that embraced it. Not only were they able to keep deaths from Covid down to minimal levels, buying time for vaccinations, but life could go on as normal without fear of the virus. The policy was good for health and for the economy.

But that is no longer the case, for two reasons. First, the rest of the world did not eliminate Covid, and while one case of an infectious disease remains, anywhere in the world, it can always come back. Zero-Covid forever therefore means border closures forever. Second, the emergence of the more infectious Delta variant means only extreme lockdowns can eliminate the disease, and vaccines can no longer provide a total solution.

The parameters of Delta are remorseless. A range of estimates suggest that without countermeasures the variant has a basic reproduction number, a measure of how many new cases each infection will cause, of at least five. That implies that even with a perfectly effective vaccine, 80 per cent of a population must be inoculated to achieve so-called herd immunity, a state in which the disease can no longer spread. China is close to that level of vaccination — another policy success for Beijing — but none of the Covid-19 vaccines is perfectly effective, and China's homegrown vaccines appear to be among the less potent.

The bottom line is that Covid elimination is simply not possible. Even with an effective vaccine drive, the Delta variant is simply too infectious and too entrenched around the world. No matter how many times a country eliminates the disease, it will come back and keep coming back. At this stage, therefore, border closures and draconian lockdowns simply postpone the moment when Covid-19 will inevitably become endemic in a population while limiting citizen's freedom. Such restrictions cannot prevent its spread forever. Buying time made sense during the wait for vaccines. Now, though, buying time buys nothing.

Zero-Covid policies are often popular. The absence of Covid-19 is, after all, a state much desired. But an ongoing drive for zero-Covid increases fear of the virus, while reducing the motivation to get a vaccine, since if the virus is eliminated there will be no need. Just months ago, zero-Covid countries won praise for their policy success. Now they can win plaudits for the skill with which they leave it behind.

- Financial Times