Fear of such an outcome even prompted China to tighten measures against the pandemic, says Huang. The government urged its population not to travel to New Year celebrations, for which countless people usually travel to their families. However, she has not issued a direct ban, so there will probably still be a lot of travel.
And international athletes will be confined to a “bubble”. They arrive with specially chartered planes, move from hotels to sports facilities in special vehicles and are tested daily. There are no over-the-counter tickets for the individual sporting events, and the few spectators are instructed not to shout or cheer. In terms of security, it’s probably “the toughest Olympics in history,” says Huang.
No exit strategy in sight
Experts have widely differing views as to when and how China might eventually plan its exit from the zero-Covid strategy. Many see booster campaigns as an important part. “We advise using the boosters to combat the current variant,” says Pengfei Wang, a virologist at Fudan University in Shanghai.
The booster rate should be “as high as possible before we open the country again” and reach at least 90 percent, says Chen. “We need to build a high immune barrier.”
»Vaccinations are really essential to find a way out of the zero-Covid strategy«(Ben Cowling)
Cowling suggests China should ramp up the booster campaign as close as possible to the country’s opening up to account for waning immunity. “Vaccinations are not that critical to maintaining the zero-Covid strategy, but really essential to finding an exit from the strategy,” he says.
In addition, one should consider other types of vaccines for the booster — for example, those based on mRNA, says Lu Jiahai, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. These could possibly generate better immunity, analogous to other cross-vaccinations.