 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay Prasad from Globetrotter. There's been a lot of talk recently about China opening up the country on January 8th, ending as it were the zero COVID policy. To learn more about what's happening in China around the COVID pandemic, also this change of policy that's taken place this month in December, we decided to talk to Li Jingjing, a reporter from CGTN. She has a very famous YouTube channel, not only famous for its content, but also it was criticized by the New York Times for offering views that the New York Times didn't like, an infamous article. Li Jingjing, welcome to People's Dispatch. Thank you, Vijay, for having me. Well, as I said, China has decided to open up the borders after three years of quite rigorous zero COVID policy. Why has the government decided to change the policy and what's the mood in the country? Okay, thank you for having me. So I think I know a lot of tensions on this COVID restriction change. So let me introduce something because actually it's not a sudden change. Over the past three years, China has been constantly optimizing its COVID prevention control measures. It updated nine different editions of protocols according to the different variants, different situations. And of course, the latest change got wide attention because internationally, China will open its border in early January and it will drop all the mandatory mass testing and quarantine for inbound travelers. That means Chinese tourists can travel freely internationally as they did before. And also anyone from outside of China who wants to visit China for tourism purposes or to study, to work for businesses, they can also freely travel to come to China. So it's a good news. I know many people were looking forward this change for such a long time. So finally, this is happening. And also domestically, over the past two months, there are a lot of changes as well in terms of the COVID prevention. For example, over the three years, we have to, if we want to go to anywhere in China, we have to show our, the green code, which proves that we didn't go to the high risk regions. Now, so we have to show with the health kit, it's a code to prove that we are healthy. We have, it has our, the information that we got over vaccination, that we got our negative test results. But over the past two months, all these requirements have been dropped, have been dropped. So we no longer need to show all these proofs, all these health kits, all this green code to go anywhere. And all the restaurants, shopping malls, gyms have reopened. So now people can get, basically we are almost back to the life in 2019. But even though there are a lot of easing of restrictions, that doesn't mean China has no plans to deal with the COVID anymore. There's still a very carefully designed procedures to protect the vulnerable groups. For example, why we're doing this change now, because especially recent outbreaks in China, it proved that Omicron is less lethal compared to Delta, compared to the original variants that cause the outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. So Omicron is less lethal. And it, and medics experts got enough statistics from the outbreaks in China. And also now they're still doing the three very important things. First, to get the elderly vaccinated. Because even though Omicron is less lethal, less deadly, still old people above the sixties are still facing higher risks to turn to critical ill. And so they are vaccinating the elderly. Second, all hospitals, clinics across China are running in full capacity, because a lot of people are having fevers, even milder the ill. So now the pressure is on the medics, of course, and they are treating the vulnerable groups. And third, they are advocating the public about how to recover from COVID, how to take the proper medicines, how to treat themselves. So now the whole public in China, since many of them are getting COVID are sick, going through this recovery procedure, now they know how to cure themselves, even though they're staying at home. So they're easing of restrictions. But still, we have plans to protect the vulnerable groups. And I think you also asked, how are the people public feel about these restrictions? I think you know what, of course, there are mixed feelings towards the strict COVID preventions. But I would say most people really supported this prevention. Because I know a lot of people outside of China said, zero COVID is not achievable. It's impossible to do that. But you know what, China actually achieved zero COVID in 2020. In later 2020, we eliminated the most deadly COVID across China. And China was the safest place in later 2020. It was later when there were different variants across the world, and that stuck back in China. So China actually achieved zero COVID. But this thing cannot be done if China is the only country doing the strict controls. So, and if all the world were coordinating, were putting their efforts into eliminating COVID, the original variants, we probably wouldn't see this different variants that it's reaching around the world and still taking lives around the around the world. So and why the strict measures was very necessary in China? First, China is a large country with 1.4 billion people. No other countries except India has such a large population. And China has an aging population. There's a large group of people who are the elderly and who are in the vulnerable groups. So China cannot just let the virus rip. Otherwise, we would see millions of death in China as well. But you know what, China still has the lowest death to COVID-19, which stood at around 5,000 to 6,000. And I was the reporter who volunteered to go to Wuhan when the city was under lockdown and when the pandemic was very scary back then. And I saw with my own eyes how deadly and how horrible the original variant could be. And I think most people, they probably still remember what it was like in early 2020 when the variants was raging in their countries. It was very lethal, taking lives of millions. So it was very necessary that China adopted these strict measures, put a lockdown on the cities. So because it stopped millions of people from dying. And why we are doing these strict restrictions for three years? I know some Westerners started criticizing China's measures. I saw a painting piece, I think quite ridiculous. They said, why are you adopting these strict measures in the past three years? Now you ended up in the same place as we did. But I want to say no, we didn't end up in the same place. In the past three years, China was really buying the time to first increase the hospital beds, especially the beds in ICU's. I have some numbers. For example, in the past three years, the bed, hospital beds for critically ill increased by 80,000. And also doctors increased by doctors for ICU's increased by one third. And the numbers of nurses was doubled. And also the group, there were even larger group of medics who were just standing by who can transfer to work for ICU's immediately. So over the past three years, China was increasing hospital beds for the vulnerable groups, vaccinating the elderly. And also, let's not forget in 2020, the Chinese doctors shared the sequence of the virus and also donating medical stuff and sending medical teams to different countries and donating vaccines to the world to help other parts of the world recover from this. So the three years didn't go in vain. The three years we were buying the time to protect the vulnerable groups. So so far, since the hospital beds are increased, medical teams will have more medics. And the Omicron, finally, in the three years, we waited the virus to get weaker and weaker. And finally, Omicron is less deadly. It's time to open the border because, of course, we saw the damage to our economy. And a lot of people have some discontent, which is understandable because doing this strict COVID measures for three years was exhausting for a lot of people. But they know they were doing this to protect their family members, to protect the elderly groups, to protect the vulnerable. Even though it means we have to sacrifice our economy, but it's prioritizing the lives of the people. And now everything is less deadly and we are much more prepared. So I think it's a perfect timing. It's a good timing to finally resume our life back to the 2019. Well, having having got COVID in 2020, the first of three times, I can tell you that it was very, very debilitating in 2020, the original strain without a vaccine. Certainly, zero COVID was a strategy used by many countries, Australia to Vietnam, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, you know, a range of countries followed zero COVID. China outlasted most of them. It is said, Jingjing, that China held on to zero COVID partly because of the low vaccination rate among the elderly. What you mentioned, overall vaccination rate in China is about 89% of the population vaccinated. But people over 80, they say that the rate is only 40%. Why is it that older people in China didn't get vaccinated? What was the reason for that? This is from my observation. I don't think it represents the whole situation in China. But I know first, some old people, they already have some underlying issues. So they're worried this vaccine may, they are not sure whether it's good for them since they're already suffering from cancer or different serious diseases. So they had their doubts. And also, I personally know some people from the older generations. I don't know whether it's just in China, where it's probably the same for excuse me for my cats, who's walking around. So, you know, some people from older generation, especially in some Asian countries, or in China, they are a little bit starving, not entirely trusting medical resources. They're just having their doubts. And especially older generations, I remember, it's very hard to convince your Chinese parents or Asian parents to go to hospitals. And sometimes, even when they have serious issues, they would say, Oh, I'm fine. It's okay. I don't want to go to a hospital and spend the extra money, or I don't want to cause any trouble for you. So I think for some older people, they just have these concerns, or they just don't want to be the burden of their families. But, you know, the vaccines are free. And anyone who wants to get a vaccine, you can just go to the local community and get a vaccination. It's so accessible, so available. So, yeah, that's my guess. But I'm not sure whether it represents all the older generations. Well, I just want to tell you that my mother, who died during the pandemic at the age of 91, not of COVID, was delivering tea to people during the pandemic. And when I asked her, I said, Why are you doing this? You're going to get COVID. She said to me, I'd rather die of COVID than boredom. You can't make people do things. And I must say, it is a testament to a a population that people are willing to close themselves down in order to protect the elderly. It's actually something that one needs to emphasize a little more. Jing Jing Lee, thanks a lot for coming on People's Dispatch. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.