China fights economic slump, sticks to costly 'zero COVID'

China’s leaders are struggling to reverse a deepening economic slump without giving up a “zero-COVID” strategy that shut down Shanghai and other cities

BEIJING -- China’s leaders are struggling to reverse an economic slump without giving up anti-virus tactics that shut down Shanghai and other cities, adding to challenges for President Xi Jinping as he tries to extend his time in power.

The ruling Communist Party has declared its “zero-COVID” goal of preventing all infections takes priority over the economy. It is a decision with global implications and comes despite warnings by experts including the head of the World Health Organization that the goal might be unattainable.

“We don’t think it is sustainable,” the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Tuesday.

China kept infection numbers low until early this year with a strategy that shut down cities, but entailed soaring costs. Beijing has switched to “dynamic clearing” that seals buildings or neighborhoods if infections are found. But with thousands of new cases of the highly infectious omicron variant reported every day, that keeps most of Shanghai’s 25 million people at home. Big parts of Beijing and other cities with tens of millions of people also are closed.