There is no doubt that COVID-19 has caused lasting impacts on people, businesses, and overall health through disease transmission and subsequent policies. China’s “zero-COVID” lockdown policy mandates that medical facilities are expected to isolate all positive cases, regardless of severity, and avoid any form of cross-contamination.
The locked-down city in China’s northeastern Jilin province revealed additional challenges that result from limiting population mobilization; people are unable to access care in hospitals for other non-COVID-related diseases since many local hospitals turned away non-COVID patients during the outbreak since they are overwhelmed with the zero-COVID policy. The local government’s response to this crisis is to roll out support hotlines and loosen restrictions on locked-down compounds, permitting people to seek healthcare services. Additionally, critically ill patients will now take priority over COVID-19 patients.
Rifts in this policy are also seen in Shanghai, where the prioritization of cases by medical workers is facing criticism from the public on social media. The rationale of this policy is that governments fear the alternative, as COVID-19 is known to quickly overwhelm and collapse entire healthcare systems, but the public is concerned that this may be at the expense of economic and social well-being.
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