China’s Covid ICU problem

The difficulty of ramping up hospital care for Covid might threaten the CCP’s control of its people. 

Only a few weeks after restating its commitment to Zero Covid, the Chinese Communist Party made a remarkable U-turn in December – at pace, rather than with a carefully measured loosening of restrictions. Three elements may have shattered its determination to stick with Zero Covid: a realisation of the economic costs, the nationwide protests against lockdowns, and a tsunami of infections. The first two could have been dealt with by an orderly retreat. The last probably explains the sudden and unprepared abandonment of Zero Covid, which was so closely associated with Xi Jinping. 

Throughout the pandemic CCP propaganda portrayed China’s containment of Covid as a sign of its superior governance compared to America and Europe, where numbers of hospitalisations and deaths were high. If Omicron now overwhelms China’s health system, as it seems to be doing, the Party’s prestige will receive a severe blow on top of the knock it took from protests over lockdowns.