🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Life in China could return to pre-pandemic levels by the middle of next year, one of the country's leading public health experts predicted as Beijing continued to replace old warnings about the virus with new assurances.
Zhong Nanshan, a key adviser in Beijing's response to COVID-19, also dismissed modeling that pointed to the possibility of mass deaths in the coming winter months as China faces its first nationwide wave three years into the pandemic.
"Someone asked me earlier when conditions would return to pre-2019 levels. My opinion is in the first half of next year, after March," said Zhong, who received China's highest civilian honor from President Xi Jinping in August 2020. "I can't guarantee it, but that's what the trend indicates."
Zhong, 86, was speaking at a press briefing on Friday, December 9, in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, local paper Southern Daily said in a report the next day. The city of almost 19 million people saw some of the most violent protests against the government's lockdown measures before Xi's zero-COVID policy was effectively abandoned last week.
China was shifting its focus from containing infections to preventing severe cases, Zhong said, predicting the coming wave would peak between mid-January and mid-February.
Leading specialists in the country were previously cautious about openly contradicting Beijing's line on the necessity of a zero-tolerance approach to infections, but Zhong and others now play an important role in the central government's abrupt reversal of previous warnings about the risks of reopening.
In comments later repeated to China's official news service Xinhua on Saturday, Zhong said 99 percent of infections—all from the prevalent Omicron strain—wouldn't lead to severe disease; most people would recover in five to seven days and wouldn't require hospital care. "Don't worry about a COVID infection, and don't discriminate against infected people," he said.
China's national health authority said in November that more than 90 percent of the country's 1.4 billion people had received a full course—two doses—of a COVID vaccine. However, several mathematical models, accounting for the lack of natural immunity among the population, projected hundreds of millions of infections and upward of 1 million deaths in the coming wave.
Zhong, who rose to prominence for managing China's SARS outbreak 20 years ago, said the forecasts, based on data from Hong Kong's surge in infections and deaths earlier this year, were inappropriate due to differences in vaccine uptake.
Less than 20 percent of Hong Kong's over-60s were fully vaccinated at the time of the city's outbreak in February, Zhong said, compared to China's near-70 percent booster rate among those in the same age group as of December 8.
According to China's official statistics, more than 90 percent of over-60s have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. However, an estimated 37 million in the age group haven't received a booster shot, and 28 million are unvaccinated.
Beijing has been scrutinized for refusing to approve Western mRNA vaccines, but Zhong said three doses of any shot—Western or Chinese—would be equally effective at preventing severe disease. China's inactivated virus shots "are slightly less effective at preventing infection than are imported vaccines, but they have fewer side effects and are safer," Southern Daily quoted him as saying.
Beijing is encouraging China's risk-averse senior citizens to complete their vaccine course and be boosted ahead of the surge in cases. Convincing the public that an infection is nothing to fear could be a difficult challenge.
Zhong Ming, who heads the critical care department at Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital, shared similar outlooks about the trajectory of China's COVID wave in an interview with finance outlet Yicai on Sunday.
Zhong, who has no relation to Zhong Nanshan, said infections would likely reach a high point within a month. China's most pressing task, he said, was to manage the influx of patients seeking medical care in order not to overwhelm the health care system, he said.
China's National Health Commission said the country has nearly 10 ICU beds for every 100,000 people.
"Obviously, if many people become infected with COVID in a certain period of time and most go to the hospital seeking medical care, it would be a huge challenge for the rationing of medical resources," said Zhong Ming. "So I've always emphasized that the majority of people don't need to go to the hospital, which could cause a run on medical resources."
Officially, cases in Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities are declining even as more and more people disclose infections or write about positive cases among acquaintances on social media. The inconsistency is thought to be a result of China's dismantling of mass testing requirements, leading to uncertainty about the accuracy of official figures going forward.
In the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper People's Daily on Monday, an article by the central government's pen name "Zhong Yin" urged members of the public to take personal responsibility for their own health.
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About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more