China Deliberately Pushing Citizens to Get COVID-19 to Reach Herd Immunity: Expert

Travellers walk with their luggage at the arrival hall of the Hong Kong International Airport on Dec. 30, 2022. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

After widespread protests against the lockdowns in November, the Chinese regime abruptly reversed its stringent zero-COVID policy in early December in a dangerous push for China to reach herd immunity at the fastest pace possible, said an expert.

Since the reversal, COVID-19 has ravaged China’s population, which was unprepared for the sudden change after three years of zero-COVID restrictions.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intentionally reversed its policy so that the country can reach herd immunity at the fastest pace possible, said former U.S. Army virologist Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin.

“So basically CCP is adopting a totally different strategy compared to the Zero-COVID policy, they actually encourage people to get infected in order to get the so-called herd immunity as soon as possible,” Dr. Lin, who is also assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College said to NTD on Jan. 3.

“Actually, nowadays, you see in China, they allow many places to host huge events, for New Year’s celebrations. You see tens of thousands of people gathering together to celebrate the New Year,” he added.

Dr. Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. (Courtesy of The Epoch Times)

According to a report from Chinese state-run media Global Times, on Dec. 31, thousands of people gathered in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province to attend the count-down event. The Bund, Shanghai’s famous riverside walkway, was crowded with people. Meanwhile, large throngs of people watched the fireworks in a strolling street in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, northwest China, a scene that hasn’t happened in three years.

“They basically push many people to get severely infected and many will end up in ICU or die and it came at a time when China is in a very, very poor shortage of even the anti [COVID] Paxlovid medicines,” he said.

The sole foreign medication for the treatment of COVID-19 that has received nationwide approval from China’s regulator is Paxlovid. However, getting access to it is quite difficult. The antiviral medication was offered via a Chinese healthcare portal earlier this month, and it quickly sold out, CNN reported on Dec. 26.

He described the situation as a “very huge disaster'' as “so many people will die because they cannot access medical treatment.”

Deliberate Leakage of Infection Figures

As a Member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, Lin believed the leakage of China’s infection rates is a deliberate move associated with the current governing system led by the outgoing Chinese premier Li Keqiang.

Lin described Li as a “more down to the earth” person.

“So sometimes you see some data come out of the system,” he said, citing the recent statement made by Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We didn’t expect the first wave to be this vehement,” Zeng told an online panel on Dec. 29, according to state media.

Based on Zeng’s estimate, over 80 percent of Beijing residents, or 17.6 million people, may have already been infected with COVID-19.

Separately, leaked images of papers from a CCP conference revealed that authorities believe as many as 248 million people became infected within the first 20 days of December. Also, the virus has infected more than half of the residents in Beijing and Sichuan province in southwestern China, according to the documents.

Meanwhile, the newly elected Politburo member Li Qiang, who Lin said, is actually taking the lead in controlling the pandemic situation in China, wants to “cover up the true information about the infection, hospitalization, and people in ICU as well as the death toll.”

Lin said the Chinese regime’s supposed death toll since the start of the pandemic—now standing at 5,253—is a“joke.”

“These are totally a number that no one can believe right now,” he said.

“So I think the reality is much worse than the world has been seeing through Chinese official data,” he said.

“I think in January or even in February, we still will see a very high peak of the death toll coming out of China, the real number,” Lin predicted.

Eva Fu and Dorothy Li contributed to this report.