By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
Achieving “zero-transmission” of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is China's goal of “zero-COVID.” In 2020, South Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and parts of Australia attempted to completely stop the transmission of this virus. The remoteness of New Zealand and Australia offered the possibility of sealing off from the rest of the world. As it became evident that many healthy folks with no obvious symptoms could carry and spread the virus to others, this made widespread testing and isolation the action plan. No vaccinations were yet available.
And here the first important factor comes into play: how willing is a population to conduct extensive and repeated testing, and how willing are they to then isolate at home? The answer was clear for mainland China, South Korea and Taiwan. Because time between initial infection and first sickness could be 3 to 5 days, such a patient could already begin spreading the virus before becoming sick. So this involved extensive routine testing of “normal” folks. And it also required all who tested positive to quarantine at home, as with all persons who had come in contact with them in the prior days. These Asian countries used the extensive smartphone system now used by their whole population to set up a red-yellow-green phone code system for those 1) who tested positive for the virus, 2) were in recent contact (phone distance), or 3) tested negative. This system effectively pulled the infected from wandering in public as long as everyone followed the testing and technology.
But that red-yellow-green system was not acceptable to some Western societies, including the United States. Therefore we set up early test-and-trace systems to try to track down physical contacts by the patients’ memory after they became sick. But in the May 8, 2020 issue of the journal Science, nine researchers at Oxford University in England calculated how using human contact tracers to interview new patients and track down their recent contacts was a case of too-little, too-late. Only the use of the green-yellow-red cell phone apps could slow the epidemic. And it did work in South Korea, China and Taiwan. Indeed, the enforcement in Taiwan was most forceful. Meanwhile, complaints that this would “invade privacy” prevented its use in the United States and some European countries. This is the first difficulty in reaching zero-COVID: it requires community responsibility, not individualistic selfishness.
Through massive testing and the cell phone app, China eliminated the epidemic within its borders for a short time. But there was continuous leakage across borders with North Korea, Siberia, Xinjiang and through the international airports. Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and South Korea were likewise constantly fighting introductions from migrants, airline pilots and others. But with the three-times-more-contagious Delta variant, this spread has become harder to contain. Delta’s origin in India reveals another factor: poverty. China with 1.4 billion people was able to isolate-in-place for several weeks in early 2020 because their standard of living was high enough and their rate of personal savings was high. India with nearly as many people as China could not isolate-in-place without many starving. India did not have the communitarian culture nor did it have the standard of living allowing daily life to stop for a few weeks.
China continues to fight the higher contagion rate of Delta and Omicron by adding massive vaccination to prevent transmission. In a recent Science article, reporter Dennis Normile notes “China has only reported 127,018 cases of COVID-19 and 5697 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The United States, with roughly one-quarter of China’s population, has seen 46.5 million cases and more than 750,000 deaths.” Indeed, the U.S. is now approaching 800,000 deaths. China’s CDC is aiming for 85 percent coverage early next year, having administered over 2 billion vaccines so far.
Recently, President Biden wrongly announced that “The United States is leading the world on vaccination donations” at 1.1 billion promised. This is about half of what China is providing.
According to Reuters, “China approved the use of its Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines for children between the ages of 3 and 17 in June, 2021.” China hopes to provide full (2-shot) protection to 160 million children by the end of this year. In just two weeks, 84 million children (ages 3-to-11) got their first shot. “By contrast, in the United States, 2.6 million children between ages 5 and 11, or about 10 percent of the eligible population, received one dose over roughly the same time period.”
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.