That doesn’t mean that zero-Covid is sustainable forever as time goes on, as lockdowns and other frustrations take more and more of a toll. New Zealand and Singapore already had to give up on it. Even putting protests aside, this wave could easily be the one that can no longer be controlled.
1) be competent at understanding the tradeoffs inherent in controlling a system
2) be competent at understanding how to maintain or advance their position of power
Almost every other country in the world has now opened up suggesting that the vast majority of leaders now consider a zero covid strategy to mean one or both of the following postulates is true:
a) the damage inflicted on the system by a zero covid strategy outweighs the damage caused in loss of life and the (temporary) health care system collapse
b) a zero covid strategy poses a serious risk to their position of power
It could well be that Xi/CCP have become hubristic about their positions of power and the extent with which they can control reality (arrogance). Or they could have simply misweighed the tradeoffs or underestimated the threat of a zero covid strategy (incompetence). If either of these aren't true then there must be an unknown at play which leads me to wonder if they have extra information regarding the tradeoffs that everyone else does not possess. If, for example, you knew or suspected that 25% of those infected would be dead within 10 years, it might be prudent to keep that information to yourself, particularly if you were a dictator who believed he would still be in power in ten years time and had military expansionist plans.
I do believe in Hanlon's Razor (never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity) so arrogance or incompetence are vastly more likely to be the real cause but, given the murky origins of covid, I'm not sure that we can entirely rule out the hidden agenda either.
Its pretty surprising.
