Question: WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus shared some views on China’s "zero COVID strategy" at a media briefing yesterday. WHO experts also stressed the need to balance COVID prevention and economic and social operation. What’s China’s comment?

Zhao Lijian: Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese government has been committed to a people-first and life-first philosophy, to an approach featuring preventing imported cases from abroad and resurgence at home, and to a dynamic zero-COVID policy. We have been adapting prevention and control protocols to the evolving situation and achieved major strategic outcomes in this battle.

China’s dynamic zero-COVID policy is not aimed at realizing zero infection, but rather at bringing COVID-19 under control at the minimum social cost in the shortest time possible so as to effectively protect the health, normal life and production of the 1.4 billion Chinese people to the maximum. I can give you an example. When cases were reported in Tianjin in January 2022, more than 10 million samples were taken within just 4.5 hours. Surgical lockdown was applied to the specific shops and residential building units concerned. The overwhelming majority of the Chinese population in most parts of the country can enjoy normal life and production. The COVID-19 infection rate and mortality rate in China remain the lowest in the world. According to an analysis published by The Lancet in March, global estimates of excess deaths indicate 18.2 million people may have died because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the excess mortality rate estimated to be 120 deaths per 100,000 population globally, 179 for the US, and 0.6 for China. Beginning from March this year, it is thanks to the dynamic zero-COVID policy that China has withstood the severest test in COVID-19 prevention and control since the battle to defend Wuhan and achieved effective results at the current stage. The Chinese government’s COVID-19 policy can stand the test of history. Our science-based prevention and control measures have been proven to be effective. China is one of the countries with the most successful COVID-19 response in the world. This is a fact witnessed by the international community.

I have seen reports that based on new modelling by scientists in China and the US, China risks over 1.5 million COVID deaths if it drops its tough dynamic zero-COVID policy. China’s huge population also means that relaxing prevention and control measures will inevitably lead to the death of a large number of elderly people. China’s dynamic zero-COVID policy has offered effective protection to the elderly and vulnerable groups with underlying health conditions. It is distinctly different from the laid-back approaches of herd immunity and natural immunity followed by some countries. Not long ago, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific commended China’s COVID-19 response. He said that China has been keeping up with the evolving COVID situation by updating its prevention and control policies, revising guidelines, and adjusting testing and quarantine arrangements.

I would like to stress one last point that the Chinese government has formulated and implemented the dynamic zero-COVID policy based on China’s national realities and has been adjusting prevention and control protocols based on the changing conditions. The purpose is solely to protect people’s life and health to the greatest extent possible and underpin sustained, sound and steady economic and social development. In China, we have the foundation, the conditions and the capability to achieve dynamic zero-COVID. We have every confidence in winning this hard battle and making greater contributions to the united global response.