Thread: Herding Cats In Beijing : China's "Zero-Covid Policy" and the 2022 Winter Olympics!!

Most people may not know that China is trying to control Covid-19 using what is called a zero-Covid policy. Of course this is in addition to widespread vaccinations.

The zero-Covid approach is putting a severe strain on the people as it restricts nearly everyone in a village, town or city if only a few cases of the disease are found. Some people are having trouble finding food and other critical supplies due to these lock-downs (1).

One can only wonder what will happen to all those people when thousands from all over the world converge on Beijing for the Winter Olympics in February (2). It seems highly unlikely that China will be able to contain the virus, especially with the appearance of the Omicron variant. This is particularly true when their Sinovax vaccine (which employs inactivated virus), used to inoculate many Chinese, does not appear effective against the Omicron variant causing Covid-19 (3).

Time will tell how much damage their zero-Covid policy will have on their economics, and the mental and physical health of its 1.4 billion people, particularly in light of the poor efficacy of their widely used Sinovax inoculations, even with a booster dose.



"How much longer can China keep up its zero-Covid strategy?"

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...th-coronavirus


"A month before 2022 Winter Games, Beijing enacts COVID 'closed loop'"

2. https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sp...op-2022-01-05/


"Three Sinovac Doses Fail to Protect Against Omicron in Study"

3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...on-study-shows

There appears to be some good news out of China on the development of a protein-based vaccine booster. The new vaccine outperforms the inactivated virus version of their current vaccine (1). This may help a great deal in controlling the spread of omicron if they can get it into enough arms fast enough. If anybody can do it, they can!

Let's hope they can produce a unique vaccine in mass quantities, which will help to minimize the spread of omicron. If they are going to stick with the zero-Covid policy, they will need some serious improvements in vaccines.

One should think that producing an inactivated omicron vaccine would be the fastest approach to dealing with the virus. Since the original vaccine worked well with the first variants (2) , and then slowly lost efficacy with other variants that came along, it would seem that inactivated omicron vaccines should be manufactured and administered soon, if they are to deal with this new threat. Two approaches are usually better than one.

Quoting from 2 (a WHO report) on the initial CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine :

"A large phase 3 trial in Brazil showed that two doses, administered at an interval of 14 days, had an efficacy of 51% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 100% against severe COVID-19, and 100% against hospitalization starting 14 days after receiving the second dose."

end quote

So it would seem that inactivated omicron vaccines are optimal for immediate mass production and application.


"Sinopharm protein-based booster stronger against Omicron than earlier shot -study"

1. https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...dy-2022-01-07/


"The Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine: What you need to know"

2. https://www.who.int/news-room/featur...u-need-to-know