China declared victory early in its battle against COVID two years ago, and few in the West questioned its implausible case numbers or its dubious claims the virus had animal origins.
Now China’s unrealistic “zero tolerance” lockdowns and reliance on its largely ineffective home-made vaccine are coming back to haunt it as the Omicron variant spreads.
The 26 million people in Shanghai have spent over three weeks in a lockdown that allows only healthcare workers, delivery personnel or VIP’s to move freely. Home quarantine for the COVID-positive isn’t allowed. So Shanghai has “concentrated” them in some 60 exhibition halls and schools.
Outside the centers, mobs are looting supermarkets for food as they run out of essentials. Until last week, Shanghai was even departing COVID-positive children from their parents.
Despite the fact that COVID case counts continue to rise under the lockdown, Shanghai Deputy Mayor Zong Ming says it will continue: ‘The epidemic prevention and control is now at the most critical moment, and we cannot tolerate the slightest slack.’
At this rate, Shanghai’s Communist rulers may believe they will have to starve the city in order to save it from Omicron.
