I can't read Chinese and am only seeing things peep out on twitter last night and this morning
Is any official stance changing?
Is this supposedely in response to the protests? Those didn't seem for lack of a better word.....real. Or at least natively organic.
Yes and no.
Yes in the sense that, even before the libs start holding up a piece of paper and nut themselves for being so edgy, the Party released an “optimization” of their 9th version of their dynamic Zero-Covid policy. Changes implemented on a national level included, for example, reducing the length of lockdown from 7 to 5 days, reducing the unit of each lockdown from a community to a single building/elevator access, no longer quarantining the close contacts of close contacts (sic) of those who test positive, and generally asking that lockdowns must “happen swiftly AND end swiftly.” (Edit: also they banned citywide lockdowns, or at least took the power to do so away from the local govs)
No in the sense that different places are taking different approaches. What Guangzhou is doing is basically (1) no longer implementing lockdowns when there are only suspected positives (nowadays most Covid tests are done in the so-called “ten samples mixed in one tube” way to save costs, and most places will implement a temporary lockdown whenever someone’s test group has a positive); (2) no longer using constant Covid testing for everyone to see who can move about, but instead using your phone’s QR code (which you need to scan still to go to places) to do contact tracing. (3) allowing asymptommatic positives and close contacts to quarantine at home rather than at a makeshift hospital. Most other cities haven’t followed suite so far.*
I think the gov is trying to experiment with easier zero-Covid measures here — there are so many different opinions in China medically, politically, and socially about how they should approach omicron now that it spreads so much more easily but causes fewer severe cases on an individual basis. So in classic CPC fashion, “theory — praxis — theory,” they probably decided to test it out somehow.
This is NOT an “opening up.” And again long before the libs started doing their little dances the Party decided to explore ways of easing, mostly because omicron is a different beast — which means dynamic Zero-Covid, still the official policy, has to be approched differently.
Reducing lockdowns to potentially just individual buildings makes sense. Much less logistical issues.
Thank you, this is a helpful explanation!
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I wouldn't say it's getting stricter per se. I think more and more places are seeing large-scale covid measures for the first time and/or longer than ever before simply cuz omicron spreads more easily. as such there's also been exponentially more chances of local incompetency absolutely screwing over people's lives (no doubt the local cadres etc are facing an immense amount of pressure, but there's a whole conversation to be had how the Party's local organizations have become a lot more bureaucratic and dogmatic these days, simply carrying out orders without even an attempt of communication, mobilization, or grounded flexibility; and of course the more pressure/anger the local cadres face the more comfortable they are in resorting to blunt dirigism and furthering the downward spiral)