Rocky road to re-opening; Downplaying Omicron; Jiang Zemin, Xi meets Michel; Zhao Lijian
Reopening may be very rocky and confusing but it is unfolding before our eyes. A new vaccine campaign with numeric targets is rolling out, more cities are allowing home quarantine and loosening testing mandates, and now experts are downplaying the severity of Omicron and possible long-term effects from getting it.
Summary of today’s top items:
Vaccination campaign and downplaying the severity of Omicron - Caixin reports that the government has “set a Covid-19 vaccination target for 90% of people over 80 years old to have taken at least one dose by the end of January 2023”. If a target is set and is part of local officials KPIs then the campaign is likely to be successful.
More on the Covid re-opening - Somewhat relaxed testing requirements, home quarantine in more places, propaganda that is walking up to “living with it”. One thing to pay attention to is whether or not the daily case number count increasingly deviates from the real number as fewer people are required to test regularly.