Beijing moves to defuse protests with carrot-and-stick policy, announces plan to boost elderly COVID-19 vaccination

Health officials unveiled a plan to boost vaccination rates among the elderly, a key metric that the government has cited to justify the “zero-COVID” policy

China’s government on November 29 said it would launch a new push to vaccinate the elderly—a key step that would enable an eventual easing of the unpopular “zero-COVID” policy—while also pledging to crack down on activities that “disrupt social order”.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party leadership has not yet directly commented on the widespread and unprecedented protests over the weekend in cities across China, but has appeared to respond with a two-pronged approach to deal with rising public anger over continuing lockdown restrictions.

Editorial | Time for change: On ending the zero-COVID policy

On Tuesday, health officials unveiled a plan to boost vaccination rates among the elderly, a key metric that the government has cited to justify the “zero-COVID” policy warning that opening up would lead to mass deaths.

Officials said of the 30 million Chinese aged 80 and above, 65% had completed the three doses of Chinese vaccines required to prevent hospitalisation and death, up from 40% last month. The push would continue to vaccinate the vulnerable, focusing for instance on nursing homes, and would now reduce the interval between doses from six months to three, the National Health Commission said, even as the country continues to deal with a COVID-19 wave of 40,000 daily cases.

Officials of the commission at a daily briefing indirectly acknowledged the protests, and called on local officials to better respond to “reasonable” requests from the public. Cheng Youquan, an official of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, said “the problems highlighted by the public” were “not aimed at the epidemic prevention but focus on simplifying prevention and control measures”.

China’s security officials have, however, struck a harder tone, reflecting the other side of the response to the protests. With a heavy deployment of security personnel in many Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai, the protests of the weekend have not been reported. On Monday, a gathering in Hangzhou in the east was broken up by a heavy deployment of police.