Year in Review: China’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Fight Against Covid-19

In the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic that changed everything, China has largely brought the domestic spread of the infectious disease under control with its “zero tolerance” policy, and maintains that the strategy has been effective to deal with the more contagious Covid variants Delta and Omicron.

Amid criticism of the approach being too costly, leading Chinese experts including Zhong Nanshan and Zeng Guang have defended the policy, noting that the measures are necessary to control domestic outbreaks with travel restrictions, lockdowns and mass testing when new coronavirus cases emerged.