Looking around the world now, only China still maintains a policy of dynamic zeroing, and other countries have basically abandoned or in fact abandoned dynamic zeroing. What we can see is that some countries and regions that are widely regarded as "epidemic prevention models" by Western countries have now given up zero, followed by a sharp rise in the number of confirmed cases, and whether medical resources have been washed away depends on the scale of their medical resources.
Take Singapore, for example. When Singapore began to liberalize its vaccination measures in August, 83% of its population had been vaccinated, fully reaching the theoretical scale of "herd immunity". However, the reality is that since August, the number of confirmed cases in Singapore has surged from hundreds of cases to 200,000, the isolation bed has occupied 85%, the ICU unit has occupied more than 2/3, and there are 1500 medical personnel resigning in 6 months (about 2,000 resigned in the original year), and social anxiety has begun to spread. Singapore has had to tighten its epidemic prevention measures slightly, but the number of daily cases has exceeded 5,000. It should be noted that Singapore has a population of only 5 million, and Singapore has much more per capita medical resources than China.
For China, the cost of dynamic zeroing has also increased significantly, mainly because: First, the transmission rate of the delta variant is very strong, higher than the initial virus r0 value in 2020, so the scale of each case of indigenously transmitted infection is larger, and the scale of related close and sub-close connections has also been significantly expanded, which means that the scale of nucleic acids and isolation costs will be much larger than in 2020. Secondly, the risk of imported epidemics caused by the continuous spread of the global epidemic has also continued to increase, from June to now, China has had four rounds of large-scale local epidemics, each of which is due to imported cases, continuous prevention and control measures are breathless, and many people's lives are directly impacted.
Admittedly, the cost of dynamic zeroing is visible, so it is understandable that complaints about dynamic zeroing are increasing in the face of the impact on many people's lives. However, it should be noted that dynamic zeroing is in stop loss, not in gain, dynamic zeroing compared to full liberalization, the cost is still low. This is not difficult to estimate, because the relevant models that can accurately predict the epidemic will already give us the answer.
Logically, the cost of opening up and the coexistence of the virus will be much higher now, but because it has not happened, many people only pay attention to the cost of dynamic zeroing.
First, coexistence with the virus will directly lead to a surge in confirmed cases, with China's population density likely to grow on a scale greater than that of the United States and India, where the number of confirmed cases is unreliable. This consequence is that China's medical system has been seriously impacted, after all, the size of doctors per capita and the number of ICU units in China are far less than in European countries and the United States, we simply can not withstand so much medical pressure, and the medical system will have the possibility of collapse. As a result, a large number of cases that could have been saved could not be saved.
Secondly, after coexistence, there will inevitably be a large number of new crown pneumonia cases, and the treatment of these cases will not only be impossible to be free, but also squeeze out huge medical resources. This will be a disaster for patients with other diseases, resulting in many additional, other cases dying because they do not receive timely medical care.
Third, if China is faced with such a large-scale infection, it is impossible to re-zero, and the fight against the Wuhan epidemic in early 2020 has mobilized almost all the resources that can be mobilized in the country, especially the medical staff who can be mobilized. And if there are 2-3 more infections like wuhan at that time, the resources of the whole country will not be enough. Therefore, once we are liberalized, we have no way back at all, and such decisions must be made with caution.
Finally, if the scale of the infection is huge, we can only flatten the infection curve like the Western countries, and the consequence of this is a continuous blockade-release-blockade-release cycle. Now zeroing can generally be lifted at the longest of 5 weeks, but if such a cycle may be blocked for more than 6 months in a year, it is clear that people who complain about the zeroing policy will also miss the good time of zeroing. Now one industry is affected and can temporarily go to other industries for temporary employment, if the epidemic spreads throughout the country, it is difficult to find a job to transition. What's more, the renminbi is not yet a world currency, and we do not have de facto economic colonies, so we cannot print money at will like the United States and Europe to survive the crisis and have someone pay for it. The destructive effect of coexistence on the economy must not be underestimated.
At first glance, China's dynamic clearance is an ongoing outbreak, but don't forget that China is large, so most of the situation after each outbreak is at the expense of restrictions on social activities in one place for a month, in exchange for the continued operation of the rest of the country. Cases like Ruili are more extreme, and there may be more hidden behind them. Only this nationwide overall operation can stabilize production and consumption, and escort China's development in the midst of chaos.
It is worth noting that many western media's Chinese has always played the role of public opinion war against China, and recently many western media Chinese have extensively discussed the cost of the zero-clearance policy, and even portrayed zero-zero as "terror".
Once you let go, there is no turning back. As long as there are no more contagious variants than Delta or Ramda (which is unlikely), the cost of zeroing out remains manageable. It is very foolish not to think that the measures to stop the damage have not occurred because the damage has not occurred.