Fig. 1. “In Beijing, people hold white sheets of paper – a symbolic protest against censorship – at a demonstration against Covid restrictions.” Photograph by Thomas Peter for Reuters, undated, via the Guardian,[1] fair use.
The protests [against China’s zero-COVID policy] erupted on Friday in Urumqi, the regional capital of the far west Xinjiang region, after footage of a fire in a residential building that killed at least 10 people the day before led to accusations that a Covid lockdown was a factor in the death toll.
Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday to deny Covid measures had hampered escape and rescue. Many of Urumqi’s 4 million residents have been under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.[2]
Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, whom I quote in the foregoing, write that the protests at Tiananmen Square were larger and so the prognosis for these protests against China’s harsh zero-COVID policy is poor.[3] I think I would point instead to Hong Kong for more recent evidence pointing, alas, to the same prognosis.
Of longer-term significance, we probably should consider these protests as evidence against lockdowns. Admittedly, no place in the U.S. has been so draconian as China in its efforts to contain COVID-19 contagion, but even masking rules have largely had to be abandoned on much the same pretext as the Chinese are protesting now:[4] so-called “freedom,” here, as in China, a “freedom” to spread disease, a “freedom” to overwhelm medical facilities and to force them to choose who will receive care and who will not, a “freedom” to jeopardize vulnerable people’s lives (figure 1).[5] But even as I recognize this logic, I am a hypocrite.
Am I still wearing a mask as I pick up and transport passengers, some of whom are likely, even if unknowingly, infected with COVID-19? No. And very, very few of my passengers are wearing masks either. I’m tired of the whole thing, I am fully vaccinated and boosted, I blame white Christian nationalists for perpetuating the pandemic, and if it happens I am, despite my vaccination status, unknowingly infected and spreading it to anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, I would view that as cause for celebration. At the same time, I am accepting the risk of spreading it to vulnerable people, who in all honesty must surely know that they are taking that risk whenever they order an Uber. In this, I enjoy a privilege—one of very few I enjoy—of being asymptomatic despite having driven nearly every day since the beginning of the pandemic and surely having been exposed on multiple occasions.
But what we’re seeing with these protests is that even the Chinese, who live under a brutal totalitarian regime, have their limits.[6] Which raises questions I have possibly been remiss in refusing to consider: What is the limit of human tolerance for the sorts of restrictions we have endured on account of COVID-19? Can we really attribute resistance to those restrictions simply to selfishness, or as I have framed it, a willingness to sacrifice human lives to a capitalist god?[7]
And if, indeed, these restrictions have been unreasonable, then how do we mitigate the risks for the vulnerable? How do we make it not a sacrifice to the capitalist god? And how, in doing so, do we preserve the freedom and dignity of the vulnerable?
I don’t have answers to these questions. My own hypocrisy remains fully impeachable. But COVID-19 will surely not be the last plague we face. It may very well be that we need those answers whether I have them or not.
- [1]Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, “Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid policy grip China,” Guardian, November 27, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/clashes-in-shanghai-as-protests-over-zero-covid-policy-grip-china↩
- [2]Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, “Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid policy grip China,” Guardian, November 27, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/clashes-in-shanghai-as-protests-over-zero-covid-policy-grip-china↩
- [3]Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, “Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid policy grip China,” Guardian, November 27, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/clashes-in-shanghai-as-protests-over-zero-covid-policy-grip-china↩
- [4]Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, “Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid policy grip China,” Guardian, November 27, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/clashes-in-shanghai-as-protests-over-zero-covid-policy-grip-china↩
- [5]David Benfell, “What we owe anti-vaxxers in a life-threatening pandemic,” Not Housebroken, December 18, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/09/28/what-we-owe-anti-vaxxers-in-a-life-threatening-pandemic/↩
- [6]Helen Davidson and Verna Yu, “Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid policy grip China,” Guardian, November 27, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/clashes-in-shanghai-as-protests-over-zero-covid-policy-grip-china↩
- [7]David Benfell, “An impatient capitalist god demands human sacrifice. Now.” Not Housebroken, April 17, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/15/an-impatient-capitalist-god-demands-human-sacrifice-now/; David Benfell, “The capitalist death cult,” Not Housebroken, January 11, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/03/27/the-capitalist-death-cult/↩