Opinion | Why China’s extreme coronavirus controls are unlikely to work elsewhere
- Chinese strategy of having zero infections uses big data and surveillance to identify and quarantine any new case
- But it’s a different story in the United States, where lockdowns have been lifted despite a high transmission rate
That reopening in the worst-hit country has been blamed by health experts – including White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci – for a dramatic rise in new cases last week. More than 850,000 new cases were recorded in the 14 days to Sunday, with a record 75,000 infections on Friday alone. The spike has prompted many states to scale back their reopening measures.
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Donald Trump seen wearing a face mask in public for the first time as Covid-19 ravages US
At the other end is China, where the deadly new virus was first reported late last year, and which has been pursuing a strategy of elimination – it wants zero new infections. It is doing this using extreme surveillance measures to identify and quarantine every single new case.
But a closer look at how China has managed to get the pandemic under control shows it is a model that, despite its impressive results, cannot be replicated elsewhere.
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Beijing lowers coronavirus emergency level after two weeks with no new infections
In Beijing, four days after the first case was traced to the Xinfadi wholesale market on June 11, the authorities had identified 200,000 workers and people who had visited since May 30.
