China’s covid prevention apparatus is here to stay

Most countries have largely lifted their covid prevention protocols, but China looks set to hold on to its covid surveillance and control apparatus for the long haul.

Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s national health commission, laid out the country’s long-term vision around the pandemic in an article (link in Chinese) published in the key Communist Party journal Qiushi yesterday (May 16). Ma said China will enhance its efforts to control covid cases in their early stages, including normalizing routine covid testing  and conducting weekly tests in cities of more than 10 million.

China will also turn its Fangcang, or mobile cabin hospitals—makeshift healthcare facilities built around existing public venues to isolate covid patients with mild symptoms—into dedicated, permanent fixtures, wrote Ma. These types of pop-up facilities were first built in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in early 2020, and were later adopted across the country.

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