China grows more isolated as Asia Pacific neighbors start living with Covid-19

China, the country where Covid-19 was first detected nearly two years ago, remains determined to eliminate the virus inside its borders, with officials there showing no signs of backing down.Despite fully vaccinating more than 75% of its population, China is sticking to its stringent zero-Covid strategy, including closed borders, lengthy quarantine measures for all international arrivals and local lockdowns when an outbreak occurs. On Tuesday, the northwestern city of Lanzhou, with a population of more than 4 million people, went into lockdown after just six Covid-19 cases were reported there. And this approach seems set to stay, at least for now. Even though some Chinese health officials have suggested a tentative or partial relaxation once vaccination rates hit 85%, analysts say most restrictions are unlikely to ease within the next 12-months. Chen, from the University of Oxford, said it was also possible there was uncertainty about the effectiveness of Chinese-developed vaccines among the country’s leadership. One of the most commonly used shots, Sinovac, has been shown to have much lower levels of efficacy in international trials than mRNA vaccines, including Pfizer and Moderna. In addition, he said not a great number of trials were done on senior citizens, potentially leaving them vulnerable in the event of an outbreak.There have been some minor cracks in the uniform support for China’s elimination strategy. Gao Fu, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in October that once the country had fully vaccinated 85% of its population, perhaps in early 2022, it would be safe to relax restrictions.”Why shouldn’t we open up?” he said, according to state-run China Daily.Chen said it was likely China is watching to see what happens in the rest of the region before deciding what to do about its own borders. If there are few major outbreaks in Asia Pacific nations living with Covid, then maybe Beijing will consider an earlier opening, he said.”That gives China some confidence to relax,” he said.