What The Shanghainese Are Scared Of: It's Not Covid

Although the first country to enter the pandemic could also be the last to get out of it

- Anurag Viswanath

China’s President Xi Jinping, the man behind its “dynamic zero-Covid” policy, seeks an unprecedented third term later in 2022. But it is also a year that appears to be panning out as the country’s annus horribilis. Shanghai has been in lockdown for weeks and Beijing is rounding up millions for testing, to avert a Shanghai-style lockdown. In Guangzhou, flights were cancelled and 5.6 million are being tested over one suspected case. Several other economic arteries like Hangzhou (Alibaba headquarters) are also in lockdown. The Chinese rue it’s gone too far.

After all, 87% of the Chinese are vaccinated and the case fatality is staggeringly low – around 1 in 40,000. In comparison, Singapore’s death rate is 1 in 250.

The lockdown was initially welcomed. Shanghai’s balconies jigged to pop music. But since then, citizens have taken to angry screams. Their frustrations are reinforced by food shortages, measly government rations, rice-gruel meals, and Covid-shaming, all of this a throwback to the hunger and social anger of the Maoist decades.

Dreaded ‘white guards’ and ‘big whites’