China’s Covid-19 Outbreak: Hugely Consequential, Barely Discussed

On the menu today: It’s understandable if you never want to read another word about Covid-19 again, but while the U.S. has the pandemic in its rear-view mirror, the Omicron variant has arrived in China and Hong Kong, and the Chinese government, following its “zero Covid” philosophy, is trying to deal with a super-contagious variant by locking down anyplace it appears. As you can imagine, it’s not going well — and perhaps illustrating that as frustrating and flawed as the U.S. response to Covid-19 was, a “zero covid” approach just delays the problem instead of stopping it.

Covid-19, Now an Afterthought in America, Is Shutting Down China

It is arguably the biggest story in the world that you’re hearing very little about: China, which for much of the past two years held itself up as a Covid-19 success story for enacting a “zero Covid” policy, is now dealing with an explosion of cases and is trying to stop a virus as contagious as the common cold through lockdowns — with predictably bad results.