News highlights:
- China followed the unrealistic and prolonged Zero-COVID strategy as a lofty goal as if the virus was destined to disappear.
- While the virus was emerging in different forms with varying infectiousness and virulence, China stuck to the same policy.
Non-Uniform global strategy:
- At the beginning of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, countries followed their own strategies as many were clueless about how to deal with the sudden emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
- Instead of a cohesive, uniform global strategy, countries experimented on their own.
Two Principal approaches:
- Mitigation Approach:
- It was adopted by the Western Countries that tried to flatten the curve while strengthening healthcare capacity to deal with possible flare-ups.
- As a public health strategy, it is essential to distinguish maximum suppression from seeking to end the pandemic by gradually allowing the population to become infected.
- This approach, known as herd immunity, can be a lengthy and costly way to control an epidemic, especially for groups at higher risk of severe disease.
- It also disproportionately affects the most economically and socially vulnerable individuals and communities.
- Elimination Approach: or Zero COVID strategy
- The second was to follow the other extreme, the Zero-COVID strategy of not allowing even a single case of COVID-19 by imposing strict lockdowns, closing borders, and imposing travel bans.
- As part of the plan, governments tried to stamp out outbreaks down to the last case at any cost.
- Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong and several other Asia Pacific countries applied the approach, involving highly restrictive measures, for different lengths of time, with varying severity in their Covid curbs.
‘Zero-Covid’ Strategy Concept:
- About:
- This strategy aims to keep the transmission of the virus as close to zero as possible and ultimately eliminate it from particular geographical areas.
- The strategy aims to increase the capacity to identify and trace chains of transmission and to identify and manage outbreaks while also integrating economic, psychological, social and healthcare support to guarantee the isolation of cases and contacts. This approach is known as “Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support” (FTTIS).
- Approach:
- The more collaborative, flexible and effective the process, the easier it is to curb the circulation of the virus and keep the number of cases close to zero.
- Likewise, the lower the incidence of infection, the more influential the strategy is and the easier it becomes to slow the pandemic and mitigate its impacts on health, society and the economy
Rejection of the ‘Zero-Covid’ Strategy
- By Health Personnel:
- By mid-2021, healthcare authorities started questioning the zero-Covid approach to fighting the disease.
- Healthcare authorities are over hectic with their duties.
- Vaccine Invention:
- When vaccines started being rolled out worldwide, some countries also simultaneously started a gradual shift towards fewer lockdowns and more freedoms for citizens.
- Vaccination could reduce isolation.
Criticism of the Chinese ‘Zero-Covid’ Strategy:
- Hardship for Common People:
- While the virus has evolved, China’s response to tackling it has been rooted in zero-tolerance for Covid cases.
- Beijing’s harsh countermeasures to tackle Covid have imposed immense hardships on the lifestyle and livelihoods of citizens, making the curbs unpopular.
- China has refused to budge on most elements of its policy, despite the WHO saying that its Covid response was “unsustainable”.
- It remains the last significant economic power still wedded to the zero-Covid policy.
- Only recently, Shanghai faced a months-long lockdown amid the Omicron spread, while Beijing closed schools and offices for weeks over a separate surge.
Conclusion:
- The strategies to tackle the pandemic need to evolve with the evolving pandemic.
- Increasing testing and tracing capabilities, lowering the load of the healthcare system; all of us have to play our part and put efforts individually as well as in a community.
- There is no way the pandemic can be curbed with a lenient attitude towards precautionary measures. Zero tolerance should be there towards non-adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour.
- A bit more coordinated effort is required from the centre and states towards the distribution end of the supply chain of vaccines.
Pic Courtesy: The Hindu
Content Source: The Hindu