A prominent Chinese scientist raises the possibility of Beijing abandoning the “zero injuries” approach to Covid

And the country, where the virus was first discovered in 2019, has become among the last countries in the world that still follow the “zero Covid injuries” strategy, as it responds to any groups of infections, no matter how small, by imposing closure measures, while stopping international travel most of it, but the exhaustion felt by the population due to the disruption Daily life and Hong Kong’s fight to contain the Omicron outbreak has raised questions about the viability of this China strategy.

In a social media post on Monday, Jing Guang wrote that China’s strategy against COVID “cannot remain unchanged forever” and “humanity’s long-term goal is to coexist with the virus” with tolerable death and injury rates.

It is reported that Jing is the former chief scientist of the “China Center for Disease Control and Prevention” and was among the experts who supported the way the authorities responded to Covid in the beginning.

Jing said that while China’s approach prevented chaos in the beginning and the outbreak of infections in large numbers, as was the case in a number of Western countries, the country’s low infection rate was a “weak point” as a much smaller number of the population managed to develop natural immunity.

He noted that Western countries are now showing “praiseworthy courage” in looking at livelihoods in light of the virus and that China should “watch and learn.”

“In the near future and in due course, a Chinese roadmap for coexistence with the virus should be presented,” he wrote on Weibo.

Jing’s comments are unusual for a Chinese government official, which has promoted the country’s low infection rate as an indication of the superiority of the Chinese approach.

Experts who have questioned the feasibility of the “zero Covid infection” approach have previously been condemned, including prominent scientist Zhang Wenhong, who was attacked by Internet trolls and opened an investigation against him for intellectual theft after a similar post he wrote on “Weibo” in July, but Jing’s post appeared to be This kind of backlash didn’t happen online as it only attracted a few thousand comments on a platform where millions of people usually discuss trending topics.