No, you're right. The assertion that this is being done just for the sake of "controlling the masses" by itself is nonsense.
The lockdowns are continuing for practical and political reasons, namely:
Most Chinese people are unvaccinated(due to refusing to import Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) and have no natural immunity. China has far fewer hospital beds per capita than the USA, so an outbreak would be a disaster like the 2021 delta variant outbreak in India.
Xi Jingping spent the past 2 years loudly bragging to the Chinese people and the rest of the world that the CCP was the best government in the world because it was the only country that could sustain a Zero Covid policy. Now they have to keep Zero Covid going or else admit that they aren't any better than the governments they were criticizing before, and they have decided saving face is worth shutting down entire cities for months.
thedennisinator t1_ixtj2za wrote
Reply to comment by a1579 in China's widening COVID curbs trigger public pushback by reuters
No, you're right. The assertion that this is being done just for the sake of "controlling the masses" by itself is nonsense.
The lockdowns are continuing for practical and political reasons, namely:
Most Chinese people are unvaccinated(due to refusing to import Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) and have no natural immunity. China has far fewer hospital beds per capita than the USA, so an outbreak would be a disaster like the 2021 delta variant outbreak in India.
Xi Jingping spent the past 2 years loudly bragging to the Chinese people and the rest of the world that the CCP was the best government in the world because it was the only country that could sustain a Zero Covid policy. Now they have to keep Zero Covid going or else admit that they aren't any better than the governments they were criticizing before, and they have decided saving face is worth shutting down entire cities for months.