The SARS-COV-19 outbreak was first detected almost exactly three years ago in Wuhan. In large part because of PRC Government obfuscation and delay, the world was caught off-balance in ensuing months. We all know the toll in human lives and suffering that has followed.

For democratic-leaning, economically-advanced societies, the road back to a semblance of “normalcy” has been long and difficult but citizens in these countries are now embracing their return to “the new normal.” For less developed countries in the Global South, the journey has been even more arduous and painful due to constrained resources (though, interestingly, the genetic stock of African nations seems to have insulated many of their populations from the worst of Covid-19’s virulence). It is only in China — and perhaps also in North Korea but who knows what has been happening there — that the experience has been dramatically different. Xi Jinping’s “steadfast” policy of Zero Covid — and, subsequently, Dynamic Zero Covid — has resulted in coercive lockdowns of as much as 20% of the country’s population at a given time and in an ineffective vaccination program weakened by hostility to foreign-made mRNA vaccines and propaganda-induced vaccine-hesitancy among its elderly. Today, only 40% of the most vulnerable segment of Chinese seniors — those over 80 — have received two doses and a booster of the Chinese-made vaccine, a combination which has been shown to be no more effective than two doses (without booster) of the Moderna, Pfizer and comparable Western-developed vaccines.

The crippling effects of Xi’s Zero Covid and Dynamic Zero Covid policies on China’s economic performance, coupled with the unprecedented nation-wide protests against the lockdowns flaring up in late November prompted the PRC Government to suddenly drop the policies — and, in fact, any mention of these policies — in early December. As well documented in front-page reporting in today’s New York Times (After Scuttling ‘Zero Covid,’ Xi Offers No Plan), this about-face is potentially catastrophic in its suddeness: the PRC government has not readied any robust vaccination or even public education program to fill the vacuum left in the wake of Zero Covid, reliable data about infections is no longer available since government-mandated mass-testing has been dropped and people are being told to self-test at home, and Xi Jinping is nowhere to be seen, having snuck out the back door of the monument to his infallibility and PRC governmental superiority he built around his Zero Covid policy.

Xi’s Zero Covid policy has clearly boomeranged on him — and, more tragically, on the Chinese people:

But does the boomerang effect end there? Despite today’s excellent reporting by the Times and recent reporting by other news outlets, the scope of what is happening in China is only dimly understood outside of China. In large part, this is due to the fact that the scope is not well understood in China — except anecdotally and in felt individual experience — due to the heavy curtain of state-media censorship. The scope may be vast …

There are many reasons we should be attending closely to these developments. Humanity and empathy are high among those reasons. But perhaps the most important reason is that this could all come back and boomerang on us again, too. Unchecked spread among a vast, poorly-protected population can easily give rise to a new strain in China that could once again spread throughout the world.

What goes around, comes around. Wuhan Redux? If so, the finger of blame is to be pointed directly at Xi Jinping.

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