China sticking with ‘zero Covid’, but is it a binary choice?

A retired couple in China who tested positive for Covid-19 while touring the country’s north have sparked a race to track infections across multiple provinces and regions, becoming the latest example of the challenges for Beijing as it seeks to maintain a zero-Covid policy.

Within three days of an announcement that the couple had tested positive in Xian on Saturday, hundreds of close contacts of the couple and their five travel companions, who later tested positive, had been identified. In that 72 hours, several cities had rolled out mass testing, a land port stopped operating and popular locations visited by the group were closed for disinfection, according to media and the authorities.