Omicron, the Zero Covid fallacy, and the redivision of the world

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

I was struck by an editorial in the Global Times (“a daily tabloid that is an arm of the People’s Daily”) last week, following the WHO’s announcement that the Omicron variant of SARS-Cov-2 was being placed on its “variants of concern” list. In typically bullish language, the unsigned leader argued that China’s lone commitment to Zero Covid was demonstrating the superiority of its social system over the West, and that “China's achievements in fighting the pandemic will eventually shine in human history.” Stripping away the tub-thumping, what stuck out was the core of the argument:

The war between humanity and the novel coronavirus is destined to be a marathon, and the virus will potentially shape human behaviour patterns more than climate change.

Now, “more than climate change” might be a stretch. But the underestimation of the behavioural impacts of covid has been one of the failings of governments (and economists) over the last 22 months or so. And fact that covid is a “marathon” rather than the over-by-Christmas sprint assorted Western governments have claimed is entirely correct: we aren’t getting out of this any time soon. China is, however, resolutely sticking to its guns on eradication.

I’ve argued in the past that a Zero Covid setting is exceptionally hard for any government to sustain over any period of time in a global capitalist economy. Because Zero Covid has a domestic cost – reduced short-run economic growth and the direct expenses of the surveillance and quarantine – it is hard for a country to commit to it over time. If other countries pursue Zero Covid, this is a gain for your own country since the prevalence of covid (with all the dangers of outbreaks, future mutations, and so on) are reduced as a result of someone else’s efforts. But that wipes out the incentive to push for Zero Covid, since every country can hope to free-ride on someone else’s eradication efforts. A world where all or even most countries pursue Zero Covid is, as result, highly unlikely. The tendency will be towards no countries pursuing Zero Covid policies.

There is a similar, but opposite problem with vaccination: vaccination is costly, but hands a competitive advantage to a country that can vaccinate its population. (Look, for instance, at the recent revision by the OECD to its forecasts for UK growth – a result,