Cover Story: China’s Covid Response Calibration

As China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19 faces its stiffest test in the two-year-old pandemic, policymakers are moving to recalibrate the strategy to better protect the world’s largest population while balancing the costs.

The nationwide daily case count soared sharply since the beginning of March as the highly transmissible omicron variant surged across China. New infections exceeded 5,000 March 14, the highest since the pandemic erupted in Wuhan in late 2019. As of March 17, 25,000 Covid cases were logged in the current upsurge.