What, Exactly, Is Going On In China?

China is coping with what counts as a “severe” COVID outbreak considering the Party’s “zero tolerance” policy, and it’s tempting to suggest this might be the flareup that forces officials to abandon the quixotic effort to keep the virus completely subdued in a country of 1.4 billion people.

Hundreds of locally-transmitted cases are spread across 19 provinces, including 93 new reported infections on Wednesday. The case count in Beijing this go-around rose to more than three-dozen.

I assume this goes without saying, but the notion that there are only ~600 active, symptomatic cases in China is so absurd that it’s scarcely worth citing the official tally. That’s not an attempt to lampoon to Party’s efforts (as some Western media outlets are now fond of doing), it’s just to say such tallies defy common sense given the nature of the virus and, especially, the transmissibility of the Delta variant.

A primary school in the capital was subjected to a snap lockdown earlier this week, forcing parents to stand around outside until midnight when, according to Bloomberg’s account, the principal emerged to inform them that some children would be forced to quarantine for two weeks. Parents whose children were still awaiting their test results were told to go and fetch blankets and pillows, because they’d be spending the night at the school. The proximate cause of the panic: One teacher diagnosis.

Last weekend, Xi locked tens of thousands of people in Shanghai Disneyland, tested all of them, then shipped them home on more than 200 specially chartered busses. Everyone was negative. They had to quarantine for two days anyway.

When Hazmat-clad testing teams overran the park (apparently during a fireworks show at the fairytale castle), it wasn’t even clear that the source of officials’ consternation (a woman who visited Shanghai over the weekend) even went to Disneyland. Nevertheless, the contact tracing dragnet swept up everyone from visitors to park-goers’ families to Mickey and Minnie.

When the park’s official website promised a “wicked Halloween surprise” and invited guests to “come and unleash your wickedly fun side,” I’m not sure that’s what families had in mind.

“All Shanghai Disney cast members returning to work have completed two Nucleic Acid Test tests within 48 hours per prevention and control requirements, with all results negative, and are strictly following CDC self-health monitoring guidelines,” the park said, in a statement following the incident. “All environment samples collected have been tested negative.”

In keeping with decorum, the park expressed its “heartfelt thanks” not just to healthcare professionals, but also to “related departments” in the Party for their “professionalism and efficiency,” which Disney said “add confidence in our pandemic prevention and control measures and protocols and has facilitated our smooth re-opening.”

Bloomberg’s coverage of China’s COVID efforts has taken on an overtly derisive tone of late, a risky editorial slant considering the company’s presence in Hong Kong and Beijing. One article documenting the Disney drama assessed that efforts to keep the capital virus-free “are having farcical consequences.” For example, a resident who leaves Beijing might not be able to come back because “they are recorded as recently being in the city, parts of which are currently classed as high risk.” In Ruili, which borders Myanmar, at least one baby has been tested 74 times, according to “local media.”

Meanwhile, authorities managed to spark a panic by encouraging families to stockpile food, as prices rise for vegetables amid extreme weather. The notice, from the Ministry of Commerce, also raised questions about simmering tensions with Taiwan. Specifically, MOFCOM said it “encourages families to store a certain amount of daily necessities in accordance to their needs to meet daily and emergency needs.”

“All the old people near me went crazy,” a Weibo user quoted by The Guardian said, describing “panic-buying in the supermarket” by the elderly. Another Weibo user said that, “Reminding us to stockpile will inevitably make market supply and demand unstable [causing] price fluctuations and panic among some people.”

Official media were quick to offer reassurances. The Economic Daily, for example, said citizens shouldn’t have “too much of an overactive imagination.” Apparently, the “suggestion” from MOFCOM wasn’t related to the power crunch or food shortages or any war planning, but rather to lockdown preparedness.

The Global Times tried to explain. “The article, which drew over 87.8 million views on Sina Weibo as of press time on Tuesday, noted that the ministry’s suggestion was addressing recent COVID-19 flareups in the country, reminding families to be prepared should they be required to undergo emergency quarantine,” more state-sponsored coverage read.

Still, the sense of angst was palpable. And while The Economic Daily article was aimed at allaying what it called “understandable” public concern, it probably didn’t help that the state-run paper made reference to the “long-run” benefits of increasing the stock of necessary household emergency goods which, the paper said, are “a necessary supplement to the national emergency system.”

A state TV report said the Party plans to release vegetable reserves “at an appropriate time.”

As The Guardian dryly noted, “It is not clear which vegetables China holds in reserves and how big those reserves are.”