China's Covid Pivot
Ed’s introduction: These are notes from a conference call with the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This was part of Citibank’s China Investor Conference 2022, a “media-free” event at the Island Shangri-La Hotel, Hong Kong, held on 1-4 November 2022. I am not in a position to verify the accuracy of this information. But it was sent to me by a trusted Chinese institutional investor; make of it what you will.
1. There should be major changes in the zero-clearance policy; In the past, the economy gave way to epidemic prevention, but now epidemic prevention should be in line with economic development.
2. COVID-19 only spreads quickly and widely, and the fatality rate is not particularly high;
3. It will definitely be opened up and may be phased in. Hong Kong will definitely be the first to be connected to China (early next year), but it is not sure about overseas.
4. When asked if he knew whether the "special committee" mentioned in the essay was chaired by Wang Huning, he did not deny it, but praised Wang for a while and indirectly admitted it
5. Think that a 90% reduction in nucleic acid testing is useless. Leading the way is the transport sector, which needs to set an example.
6. "Ideological liberation" should be carried out before the actual release. Now there are some signs, you can find some videos of academicians objectively talking about the virus. People are worried about after-effects that can be reversed very quickly if they want to.
7. It is said that inhaled vaccine is very effective, don't be superstitious about MRNA, domestic inactivated vaccine is also good (BNT will not introduce the vaccine if there are no new changes in this visit to China, missed the best introduction period), and antiviral drugs also need to be prepared (Pfizer, domestic Real biological, Junshi Pharmaceutical).
8. Zeng said it would take 3-6 months for the epidemic restrictions to be fully lifted.
9. "Spring will surely come, you know what I mean by that," said Zeng Guang.
UPDATE 1 [3:30 pm CET, 4 Nov 2022]: There is also a Reuters story about this, just out: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-make-substantial-changes-covid-policy-soon-former-govt-expert-2022-11-04/