Let it rip: China's new approach to overcome coronavirus cases

Gives up counting of Covid cases; Xi and top Chinese leadership to hold key economic meeting as cases spike

China seems to be embracing a fast and explosive Covid reopening, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief pharmaceutical analyst, an approach that’s baffling observers given the vast country’s vulnerabilities. “Logic doesn’t seem to apply here,” Sam Fazeli said. 

China’s mindset since pivoting away from the Covid Zero containment approach is “there’s not so much we can do, we’ve done the best we can. We’ve got the blueprint for what the West did and what happened, so let’s just let it rip,” Fazeli said. 

China will also stop releasing comprehensive data on new Covid cases after the dropping of mandatory testing meant the numbers no longer reflected reality.

The country will only report symptomatic cases from now on because it’s hard to gauge the number of those infected without symptoms in the absence of testing, the National Health Commission said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping, his ruling Politburo and senior government officials will meet over the next two days to plot a recovery for country’s battered economy just as the nation faces a surge in Covid-19 infections.

Since signaling a landmark shift away from Covid Zero, China has dismantled most of its internal restrictions, casting aside the stringent rules used to eliminate the virus for the past three years. 

The rapid reversal is resulting in an eruption of cases, particularly in Beijing where the once vast testing apparatus appears to have been abandoned. The spread is so significant it’s rendered official Covid statistics all but meaningless, and seen hospitals overwhelmed. 

The unexpected shift is raising questions given, its elderly vaccination rate is still well below other countries and the healthcare system is under-resourced. Just 40 per cent of Chinese over the age of 80 have had a Covid booster, China could see some 5 million people hospitalised.