Is this the end of zero-COVID strategy?

Is this the end of zero-COVID strategy?

PARIS: Jenny Leung, who lost her job as a waitress last month due to Hong Kong’s zero-Covid strategy, has one question: “What was it all for?” Her frustration was in response to Hong Kong indicating it could transition towards living with the virus, though the city’s leaders have since said it will stick with zero-COVID. Leung, 29, called it a “half-hearted attempt” after more than two years of “a zero-COVID mindset that really hurt all of us”.

China finds itself increasingly isolated in pursuing the strategy, which uses harsh localized lockdowns to snuff out even a small number of infections, after other early adopters such as Australia and New Zealand abandoned it last year. A new daily record number of COVID cases in China on Wednesday of more than 20,000 piled further pressure on Beijing’s zero-COVID strategy as millions remain locked down in financial centre Shanghai.

Although Hong Kong now insists it will stick with its zero-COVID policy despite easing some restrictions, experts suggest that the strategy’s days could be numbered. Such policies saved lives by fending off worse outbreaks in the early stages of the pandemic, but the availability of vaccines – and the emergence of the more contagious but less