Why China dumped its ‘zero covid’ policy so suddenly — and disastrously

Up until the last minute before China relaxed three years of severe covid restrictions, officials and state media were hailing the country’s “unswerving” commitment to a strict containment strategy and the “significant advantages of our socialist system.”

That same system then witnessed a chaotic reopening, with the abrupt abandonment of lockdowns, mass testing, quarantines and contact tracing. Sick patients have since overwhelmed hospitals, and funeral homes and crematoriums have been mobbed, while relatives outside China scrambled to send basic medications that were suddenly nowhere to be found.

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