Being one of China’s richest and most populous cities, Shanghai’s strict COVID lockdown is now approaching several weeks long. Other overlooked cities and provinces in China are also in lockdown, and with two COVID cases appearing in the city of Wuhu in the Anhui Province, the Wuhu government has also called for a stay-at-home lockdown. Residents of Wuhu quickly swept stores for food and other necessities, leaving many people with supply shortages. Many residents of Wuhu have accepted the lockdown but wanted the government to supply homes with food and permit people to leave for medical emergencies. Many neighborhoods are not able to keep up with residents’ needs and many disabled and elderly residents are left unable to care for themselves. Prices of resources, especially food, have sharply increased.
Though shutting down is an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID, these lockdowns are deeply affecting businesses and China’s economy overall. With the lockdown in place, which is extremely strict (some cities have police officers in hazmat suits patrolling neighborhoods), China’s gross domestic product has decreased by a whopping 40%. Many residents are desperate for supplies and food, with viral videos of residents screaming from their apartment windows and of pet owners lowering their dogs from apartment complexes that are several stories high, by rope for the dog to walk around before being pulled back up into their apartment. One resident in Shanghai said that his 50-year-old apartment neighbor begged him for some rice and other food, evening insisting on paying, but after giving half of his rice to the neighbor, was turned down as the resident needed food too. The resident then said that this was when he realized how serious this situation was.
Shanghai has the world’s largest port, which now has shipping containers left stocked and unloaded. Economists are predicting that once the strict lockdown is lifted, there will be a huge and “overwhelming movement of goods” that can shatter supply chains. Supply chains in Shanghai continue to worsen and the jam of export volumes is impacting other nations’ economies as well. With the U.S. being one of China’s biggest foreign trade partners, Americans can also feel the effects of China’s lockdown, which many businesses who have their supplies imported from China being effected the most and are being left empty-handed.
Questions:
How do you think China should handle transitioning from their lockdown in terms of softening the impact on their economy?
Is the Chinese government handling this situation well?
Do you think that the strict COVID lockdown is worth damaging the economy?
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/world/china-lockdowns.html
https://fortune.com/2022/04/19/china-covid-lockdown-cripple-global-supply-chain/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/19/my-life-in-shanghais-never-ending-zero-covid-lockdown
5 comments:
I think that the transition from lockdown to “normal life” will be gradual, allowing for the economy to slowly adjust. I doubt that one day the lockdown will just lift with zero other restrictions, meaning that people will gradually get back to everyday life. This will help the economy slowly build back to what it was before, so I don’t necessarily think that extra precautions should be taken. I do think that the Chinese government is handling this well because they are being proactive about the situation and are trying to get it under control before it gets out of hand. I think that this lockdown will be beneficial if it is short and is lifted after cases get better, but if it is prolonged, I think that it can cause more damage than good. China has already endured a series of long lockdowns, and I think that their economy will definitely continue to struggle if this lockdown is long.
I would like to disagree with Caitlin's statement about having a gradual removal of restrictions leading to the end of the pandemic. The situation in China shows the opposite. China had defeated the pandemic previously, through their very high restrictions. After the initial peak, cases were very low, and they were the first to have positive GDP growth during the pandemic in 2020. Their strategy was to remove the cases in their country quickly and aggressively, to return to prosperity as soon as possible, and it succeeded with flying colors. This is the way to eradicate a disease epidemic. A gradual removal of restrictions, where restrictions are removed when cases start lowering, leads to cases starting to rise again because of the reduced safety protocols, and then increased restrictions. This leads to a never-ending cycle. The pandemic will not end when the restrictions are lowered, because this is where the number of cases begins to increase once again.
I agree with Caitlin's perspective about China's response to COVID, however. It is logical to impose aggressive lockdowns to remove a disease epidemic once and for all. Technically, it failed the first time because, as Tess explains in her post, China once again has a large outburst of cases, and so it was not solved "once and for all." This is because COVID is not an epidemic but a pandemic, and cases returned to the country from overseas, most likely. Because other countries like the US have elected a much more lax response to COVID with a lot more cases, their cases spread to other countries. A country cannot have a strong response only within their country to COVID and expect it to be enough because cases can still come from other countries.
I think that the restrictions in China are justified in trying to save lives and reduce the impact of COVID on the nation. It is worth it in the sense that the economy should be stalled quickly and temporarily, and restart at maximum once cases return to near 0 in the country. Over time, I think that this will lead to greater economic prosperity as opposed to a permanent semi-lockdown like we have in the US.
Coming out of their lockdown, the Chinese government has to interfere in some way to the great demand that is inevitable since people need food and other goods so badly. They can do this by providing some of these goods to people right now so there will be less demand once people are out of their houses. They can also help supply the overwhelming demand by buying and facilitating some of the goods themselves. In some way, they may need to put some money in the economy but that can be dangerous due to inflation. Without much production inside the country of China, there needs to be greater imports to supply for the people once they get out of lockdown.
I don’t think the Chinese government is handling the situation very well which is evident when you see the Shanghai people react to their situations. Many people are desperate for food and other supplies and the Chinese government isn’t really doing anything to help them. China’s economy is significantly decreasing which is expected but the way they are treating their citizens is not good.
A strict COVID lockdown is worth damaging the economy for the time being but if it lasts too long, it may be very hard to recover from. It’s important to value everyone’s safety and root out COVID so it won’t be a problem in the future. I would rather have more people survive and a worsening economy than have less people survive but still have a somewhat healthy economy. It’s important to note that lives lost also decreases production. However, if the COVID lockdown is too long, it can be bad. If it lasts too long, I say that it probably is worth just going back to normal with strict regulations like masks, social distancing, etc.
China really shouldn't be locking down this strict. As referenced by the article, if people cannot go out about their daily business, buy food, etc, or even work in person, then there will be serious economic problems for the Chinese residents. This is where pandemic stimulus relief, like the Americans did, could come into play. That money got countless Americans through the summer of 2020 and beyond, and if China continues to lock down this harshly then it may be one of the few options left for some.
The supply chain ramifications here are going to have immense consequences on the global economy. This is where other countries are likely to get involved, since now China's over-cautiousness will have ripple effects on citizens everywhere.
The biggest overall lesson here is how to approach COVID containment as a whole. Aggressive shutdowns aren't going to work how they did in 2020 when the entire world did. With widespread vaccinations + boosters (some people even have two boosters), more knowledge about the virus than ever (PPE etc), and a global population ready to exit pandemic time, people will be less receptive than ever to strict COVID measures. Now, if future variants are discovered which have severely detrimental effects, that's a different story. But for now, the focus should be on mask wearing and vaccination, even limiting capacity, but not stay-at-home orders.
Post a Comment