Unlike the West, China gives priority to health

On the Chinese New Year's Eve in 2020, my wife and I were playing cards and having some wine with my best friend's family at a five-star hotel in Foshan city. We were having a quiet evening until a hotel employee knocked on the door and told us to check out the next day and make our way back to Dongguan, or we would be stuck there. That was the first time I learned about the COVID-19 outbreak and the first time I had my temperature taken during the pandemic.

Over the next two years, COVID-19 would go on to kill two of my aunts in Colombia. The losses in my family were within what is described as “at risk” population: Margarita, the youngest of five siblings, was obese, and Anabell, the oldest, was in her mid 80s. Both died of COVID-19 complications.

Yet, all I could see happening abroad was an absolute circus. They had gotten lost in debates between personal freedoms and the implementation of effective precautions such as mask mandates, contact tracing and social distancing. It was surreal.

But living in China meant we still get to live another day, we get another go. We are gifted with the possibility of reinventing ourselves.

It was at that time of trying to figure out what the next move would be for me and my wife that I finally understood the CPC's principle behind its COVID-19 strategy: health before wealth, and wealth based on health.

That is the main reason I feel compelled to retort when the West qualifies the CPC's fight against COVID-19 as mishandling of the pandemic.

Most Western countries, because of their capitalist liberal mindset, would never embrace the principle of health before wealth.

Through the pandemic, Westerners fought for a normalcy that killed people while China fought for normalcy that saved lives. They pretended like the virus was an opinion in order to keep the economy afloat, they argued that masking was a matter of faith, that lockdowns and quarantines were impingements into their freedom, that tracking and tracing the spread of the virus was an invasion of privacy. They completely politicized and polarized their response to COVID-19 and they paid the price.

Today, the receipts are in. The US has lost more than a million lives since the beginning of the pandemic.

And paradoxically - the US economy suffered enormously due to rescue packages that were handed out to Americans for extended periods of time while China's economy was able to bounce back fast because the lockdown was done properly.

Everyone should spare a moment to appreciate the fact that, were it not for the CPC's approach to COVID-19 in 2020, which led to it retaining its ability to produce and ship PPE and other equipment necessary for the containment of the virus, the world would have been in a far worse situation.

When Omicron hit China early this year, the largest, safest, and most stable country in the world during the pandemic saw its iconic city, Shanghai, fumble and struggle.

That gave the Western world all the ammunition they needed to crank up the attacks on the CPC's zero COVID-19 approach.

That was a new low for Western media, politicians and pundits.

They deliberately failed to see that at the same time Shanghai was struggling, other cities were also hit by Omicron. Yet all those cities dealt with the outbreak as mandated by the CPC's protocol.

Every one of these places was out of trouble within two to three weeks. Most businesses around the country were back to normal operations, some adapted, some found opportunities within the new normal, some closed and moved on to other endeavors, like I did. But all this is possible because the CPC has kept us alive! We get to grow, adapt, expand, or explore new ventures that create economic growth because we live to try another day. How can anyone call this approach as mishandling?

The CPC's protocols and principles work and this is why today China is moving toward further easing measures.

What more proof does the world need of the efficacy and efficiency of the CPC's COVID-19 response?

The life-saving system that was swiftly implemented in 2020 and that has been improved over these 30-plus months will surely continue to do so. What emerged from the recent CPC's 20th National People's Congress was a revised COVID-19 approach based on 20 guidelines that refined contact tracing and testing thus enabling the government to micro target its proven containment mechanisms and therefore, minimize unnecessary disturbance to large areas. This is also how on December 5, 2022, we are presented with the new 10 guidelines for further easing COVID-19 prevention measures.

So, was the CPC's response to COVID-19 mishandled? The answer is an absolute no. Has it been misunderstood? Again, no. The CPC's COVID-19 response has been deliberately misrepresented to the public by western governments and media.

They dare not accept that the CPC's approach was the correct one. The mind-blowing failure to exert leadership has caused more than a million deaths in America. It did not have to be like that. Those deaths were preventable. China is the proof of that.

Life and the pursuit of happiness are human rights that we, in China, get to enjoy.

Did my life change dramatically due to COVID-19 and the necessary response? Yes, indeed.

But today, after re-inventing myself, I am realizing a long-time dream of bridging China and the West by presenting the truths here in China.

Fernando Munoz Bernal is a blogger from Colombia living in China.