There is an old saying in China that “give an order in the morning and reverse it in the evening” and is used to mock impulsive officials who make hasty decisions only to be forced to back down just as abruptly, causing widespread confusion and undermining the government’s credibility.
Examples of these kinds of sudden changes abound, and the bureaucrats who take them on deserve all the humiliation they get for pushing ill-conceived and unpopular directives. But every once in a while they screw up a well-intentioned decision that has far-reaching implications, provoking more feelings of disappointment than ridicule.
That is what has happened with the Beijing municipal government’s recent change of heart on the vaccination mandate, at a time when the entire country is struggling with an untenable zero COVID policy against the highly contagious Omicron variant.
On July 6, a senior official from the Beijing Municipal Health Commission shocked the entire nation by announcing that residents of the capital would have to show proof of vaccination, starting the following Monday, to enter gyms, movie theaters and other public spaces. Beijing apparently intended to become the first major city in China to introduce a vaccination mandate – a practice adopted in many other parts of the world – and set an example for other cities.
But city officials misjudged the mood of the public. The immediate outcry, not only from residents of the capital but also from the rest of China, forced the authorities to back down from their vaccination mandate on the night of July 7, and to offer guarantees that people would still be able to enter in the public spaces of the capital with the proof of a negative virus test and a temperature control, as had been the norm.
For a few short days, Li Ang, deputy director of the health commission who made the announcement, became Public Enemy No. 1 and the center of anger on the Internet. Given the importance of the announcement, it is highly unlikely that Li made the decision on his own. Senior officials in the city, including Party Secretary Cai Qi, a close ally of President Xi Jinping, likely gave him their blessing. This would have been more in line with China’s usual practice of using a major city as a testing ground for controversial policies with national implications. If they are successful, those policies are then applied throughout the country.
The fact that the capital has had to stage a humiliating retreat probably means that neither the central government nor local authorities will touch the subject again anytime soon. But this would be a great pity. Rolling out a vaccination mandate should have been an important step forward, signaling a major shift in government thinking on how to deal with Covid-19 now that the pandemic is more than two-and-a-half years old. It is something that many health officials and businessmen have been urging the central government to do for a long time.
Beijing intended to become the first major city in China to implement a vaccination mandate.
China is the world’s last major economy to insist on a policy of closed borders and excessive virus control measures that include sudden lockdowns, mass testing, lengthy quarantines and severe restrictions on movement. It has become standard practice for local authorities to respond to a handful of cases by shutting down entire cities with millions of people for days.
Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, became the latest example of this when the city of 4 million people was locked down for a week starting July 11. But the Chinese leaders know very well that this approach to ending Covid, whatever the cost, is unsustainable and its negative impact on the economy is serious. The economic costs and the discontent of the population grow day by day. Youth unemployment is in double digits and discontent over tight restrictions has led to regular street protests. Foreign investors have also echoed the need to relax pandemic control measures.
In response, the central government has begun gradually easing some of its more extreme measures. Travelers from abroad, for example, now only have to spend 10 days in quarantine – seven in a designated hotel and three in self-isolation at home – instead of the previous three weeks of isolation. Chinese airlines have also resumed more international flights and health authorities announced Tuesday that they would stop testing some imported products for the virus, a costly and unnecessary move.
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And more importantly, people’s mentality about the virus and how to remove it has also changed significantly. The latest wave to hit China, fueled by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, may be highly contagious, but most cases have shown few, if any, symptoms. The time has come for China to shift its resources from mass testing to vaccination.
Double down on the former instead of promoting the latter has been costly and damaging. For this change to take place, the government needs a comprehensive plan to educate and prepare the public for the change. The Beijing vaccination mandate debacle shows how much such a program is needed.
Much of the blame lies with the Chinese government’s ambivalence toward vaccines. For one thing, China is the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter of inactivated vaccines and more than 90% of its population of 1.4 billion people have received at least two vaccines. On the other hand, the government has been dragging its feet on promoting vaccination among the elderly, the most vulnerable group. Many of China’s elderly have not received any doses of the vaccine.
The authorities have sent people to mass quarantine centers against their will and locked them up in their own homes, but leniency has been the order of the day when it comes to getting vaccinated under a principle of “informed and voluntary consent.” Until recently, national health authorities had reprimanded some local governments for forcing the elderly to get vaccinated. China’s inactivated vaccines may have a low efficacy rate against the later sub-variants and may not prevent people from becoming infected, but they have been shown to protect all age groups against severe illness and death, especially with booster shots. .
The debacle of Beijing’s vaccination mandate need not mean that China’s central government should cower. On the contrary, it is high time that Chinese leaders consider a national vaccination mandate.
This requires a well thought out plan, including public education, and allowing the import and manufacture of foreign mRNA vaccines to increase public confidence.
Note: The article was originally published in English on the SCMP portal, and its reproduction in Spanish is done with the direct authorization of the author. Link to original article: https://amp-scmp-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3185427/china-needs-national-covid-vaccine-mandate-one- bungled-roll-out
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