long for this and it's time for us to receive someone who can give a better commitment to malaysia. analysts say there will be no honeymoon period for the new government. he has to put in place a can be net, they're gone this credibility and competence. at the same time, he has to probably face the challenge very soon in order to prove that he has majority support, embodiment at those who am i, am his rival, lead in guessing has challenged on why to prove his level of support where he didn't has also refused the king's proposal, the 2 sides set up a unity government, annoyed by him face as challenging weeks and months ahead. he'll have to introduce reforms to fix the economy. he'll also be leading a country where the racial and religious divides appear to have deepened. florence li al jazeera quite alone poor. ah,

this is audra 0. these are the top stories. china's recorded more than 31000 covered 19 cases in one day, the highest so far. the city of songs old is now preparing to lockdown for 5 days. new russian air strikes have left millions of ukrainians without power and water. as winter temperatures plummet. president vladimir zalinski has accused moscow crimes against humanity. meanwhile, e u members have agreed on 2 packages to help energy supplies across the blog. ministers have been meeting in brussels, but division remains on implementing a cap on gas prices. if at ball news chris general ronaldo has become the 1st man to score in 5 a world cups. his goal has just a, just a few minutes back has helped porch of go one all again. scanner gunner has just scored in the last few minutes and the group match at the world cup here in kata and ghana of just scored a goal as well. as i said earlier, switzerland beads,

cameron, while ago i and sophia, played out a golden strong veteran politician on whatever him as being sworn in his malays, his new prime minister, after days of political uncertainty, he's welcoming all parties to parliament. it follows negotiations after saturday's election in which no party secured a clear majority. this government all alone. 0, one dublin built a moleed hill. oh, the syrian media reporting the former commander of the current, his city and democratic forces were san colo is been killed and circus. drunk strike, that's part of an air operation launched 4 days ago against kurdish groups in northern syria to hear considers the kurdish a y p g and p k k. as terrorist groups african leaders of agreed, the troops in eastern democratic republic of congo will cease hostilities from 1600

g m t. on friday. the deal was reached in talks hosted by an goal, is president between rwanda and the d. r. c. m. 23 fighters reportedly making advances in the east and pushing back congolese troops can shows as accused or wanda of backing the group that something could golly denies. those are the headlines coming up next and al jazeera, it's inside story. good by ah, anger and frustration in china's repeated coven 19 lockdown hurts economic activity and to isolate millions of people. so white as beijing persist with strict policy,

while the rest of the world is moving on. this is inside store. ah. and welcome to the program. it's great to have you with us, i'm 0 than yea, china 0 tolerance approach to cobra 19 involves widespread locked downs, travel restrictions and mass testing. but nearly 3 years after the pandemic was 1st identified, in one cases have surged to a new high. the outbreaks, a force shut down in large suassa the country despite a strict policy being eased earlier this month. and the repeated locked downs have led to rare displays of public anger including factory workers fighting with security forces. but we'll get to our panel shortly 1st though, this report from michael. so sharif rest scenes of open descent in china

workers, the world's biggest eiffel and flattery, smash surveillance cameras, and fought with security forces already frustrated by co, 19 restrictions, isolating the plan from the outside world. if further angered by reports of payment delays, they employ a fox comb has apologized. the protest come at a time when china's logging record number of infections that's been accompanied by lock downs and mos testing. as part of preston, she shing pink, 0 covert strategy. it was eased earlier this month. and now only affected areas are being locked down and not entire cities. people in beijing say the shut downs are taking a toll or not old, almost all one your room gone by the other few other only by isn't coven 19 curbs? can people live a normal life? otherwise everything is halted. how many people have savings to support them? if things continue willis to halt, and even if you have money to stay at home every day,

that's not true. living that's lingering on the last breath of air. lo walks the nation rates among the elderly r a major hurdle. china's national health commission says 66 percent of those $880.00 and above a fully vaccinated and only 40 percent have got a booster. while in the us, the vaccination rate for seniors is more than 90 percent with berkeley and the other layers, slight rental strength ring health care system, measuring tingler vaccinated or low. then essentially, they're just kicking the child on the road. the international monetary fund is urging china to increase its vaccination rates. it's as persistent gaps in inoculations, a leading to frequent clock downs and hurting economic activity. and financial analysts said no more estimate areas accounting for one 5th of china as cross domestic products are under locked down a share, bigger than the british economy. when we consume sharif for inside story.

ah, that's bringing our guests. i know a tang and a senior fellow at the ty her institute to think tank based in beijing in taipei, alyssa garcia, hero, chief economist for asian pacific at the french investment bank. net exists and in london, oksana pisec. you are at university college london where you leave the global citizenship program on outbreaks of infectious diseases. thank you all so much for being with us. first question to you are, the rest of the world is learning to live with cove. it is a time for china to do the same well, john has been fairly successful at what it's been doing. i mean it, it ranks like 80, it's number one in the world in terms of population, but ranks 89 in terms of the number of deaths. and you know, if you start looking at the i. ringback you know, at the current situation, yes, they have $30000.00 cases, an absolute huge spike for china's standards. but right now,

many nations aren't even keeping track in japan, 3rd largest economy in the world. it had over 60000 cases and about a 130 decimal pair to ask for ian in china. so china that has a lot in terms of it's past the question is, what is a do about future people keep saying, let's move on. that's like saying, let's move on from climate change. the viruses, the virus, you're seeing over $300.00 variance out there plus long cove. it is really hitting . a lot of people are about 3 percent still have symptoms one year afterwards. the chinese government is concerned about being overwhelmed with its medical system, having people dying in the streets. you know, this is a socialist country. they tend to put people 1st, obviously in capitalist economy, they put the economy for. so it's, it's, it's a difference of opinion in terms of policy and culture. well,

you say they put people 1st, but a lot of people are fed up. that's something we're gonna have to explore. but i want to go to it's on a 1st exxon from a public health standpoint. what happens if china relax is it's anti coven measures? well, there are several things in 1st of all, the elderly population. there's a big vaccine gap there. and also just the types vaccines that are being used. so we do see that the m r a name, pfizer, type vaccine is more efficacious. so there is a reduced, let's say, protective element. i think there's really important our next step is to to drive up that vaccination rate, particularly in the most vulnerable sections of society and switching which public health tools they are using. i'm to protect their people. so there will be, again, a bit of an immunity vulnerability gap in this area, just because they have through

a quite extreme measures been able to compare to other countries, keep a cases relatively low. however long term we do see that who it is endemic. so any, it does mean that there's going to be a situation in which we, there's i've, unless there are other tools used, you can't go on locking down permanently. you have to balance public health measures. public health is not just about cov, it. public health is about other diseases to that people's health start to suffer because there's an obsession with just cove it that's not a healthy public health policy. okay. i think there's a key word and what you just said, which is balance. and that's what this entire conversation a on many levels is going to be about. let's bring in another aspect that needs to be balanced in and factored into all of this lease, or what is 0 covered? what are beijing? 0, po, coven policies. doing the chinese economy well as of 2022,

we have estimated the seal covey policies. i restrictions, immobility, basically, any kind of lockdown of or, or other measures to have wiped out as much as 2.3 percentage points of growth. in other words, if china in the year which is likely around 3 percent, you would be in id all girls boss, if he hadn't in much closer to the official packet, it would have been 5 point kil, either get close. if i went by 3 plus the target, so either way, one could even say that because of the call me and jen has missed that growth tag. but i can understand that that might be less important than than saving lives and everything else. so, but i'm the same, it is costly that said gear. all right, so at the outset of this conversation, we see that there are competing factors that need to be balanced. there's economic growth, of course, there is how you do it. there's how people feel about it. all of these need to be

factored in and i know you, you said that in a socialist system, people are prioritized over the economy. i want to read to you a quote. this is just something that we pulled off the chinese social media network, wible. it was written today was written on november 24th. it says this quote. it's been 3 years. i've never questioned our policy, but now looking at how everything is still the same as 3 years ago, endless locked downs, awful hospital food. and i turned around to see the cheerful crowd at the world cup . not a single person was wearing a mask. i can't help it. ask. is china the only place on earth with cove it outbreaks? now? i know how do you, how does beijing say to the 1400000000 chinese look. some of you, many of you millions amongst you are having to suffer lock downs that are decided overnight. that can be really drastic. and the rest of the world has somehow find a formula to avoid these. well, they haven't found a formula. i mean,

the u. s. has last 3 years longevity since 2019. so there's been a cost, there's a $1000000.00 and so over 6 and a half 1000000 people dead, i think that's also a cost. or you can literally just say, well, you know what the heck, you know, everyone else is dying. who cares? and that's, that's rather callous. attitude in terms of the frustration, it's real, i can tell you, i'm in beijing right now. i'm under locked down. mean this is the reality of, of the different system. now you can say, oh, i don't like it, china should do this, but china's done pretty well through this entire period early country that's been consistently growing during this whole period. they manage the things fairly well. so saying that, oh, we don't like what you're doing because it's hurting us because we've been responsible and you know, our approach to this kind of nonsense. we knew. yeah. there has to be some sort of

question is about i hear your argument about how china has done so far and about limiting the number of deaths. but i think the question now is ok, we're 3 years on from you know, the moment when issue initially the virus was detected in china. how do we move on to the next phase of virus containment? because this is not going away and that i think, i think everyone would agree that it's possible to move to the next phase. well, yeah and, and that's what china's trying to do. i mean, what a, the reason they had more cases because they haven't used these blunt instruments. the sledge hammer approach they had before, where they'd locked down an entire city until they had isolated every single case and stamped it out. right now. they're trying to be more surgical in their approach . in beijing, they resisted from having wholesale locked downs. they would go to communities and say, you locked down for 5 days instead of you know, the usual 3 weeks and they,

they've been trying to adjust, but it hasn't necessarily been producing the same results. but, you know, i'd like to ask you what, why is it that everyone's talking about china with 30000 cases. when japan has 60000 cases a day, and literally, you know, 50 times knows 30 times more udette's. a doesn't seem to bother anybody out there. and it's not an topic for conversation. so from beijing's point of view, they're struggling to do this. you think that they don't want economic growth. mean this has been the, the main hallmark of the entire chinese economy for the last 40 years. so, i mean, this idea that they're doing this to frustrate their, you know, their citizens is nonsense at the fact that, you know, we're discussing this now as if it's a major issue. when there are much larger ones out there is kind of kind of indicates a media bias such think, well, what i think is i think one reason we're discussing it is because we're seeing what

you might describe as unprecedented social unrest across the country. it's not just one city, it's not just 2 cities, it's several dozen cities where and you're in a country where, where people in a country where people are not lose to a big employer. oh, i respect you. what the specific you're talking about, jen? joe, we're a taiwanese company, fox. yeah, all right. did not have the agent that had promised and you had a ride there. so what other social unrest, how are you talking about? i know these are not just fox come on. we've seen pictures emerging out of china from multiple cities in a clear that doesn't normally allow air what cities and look what cities are you talking about? i, i my follow the news. i haven't seen it. well, i do have a vpn, so i follow everything. i follow the news to and i've seen it and i'm not going to be able to remember the cities not owing to the not owing to the fact that they don't exist owing to the fact that i don't remember. long lists of trainees bounce with media. i would agree with that there's frustration across the board and social

media. ok, but being frustrated is not the same thing as denying it. it's like saying, i'm frustrated by global warming. i want to move on the global warming as a back just like the pandemic is a fact. so, and as you know, as our expert in medicine pointed out, this is going to continue. the question is, how do you continue? china does not have the medical resources that you have in the us or even in japan and south korea. this nice thing question i want to know response that you're having in japan. so let's get that point of view from santa, from a public health point of view. how do you quote, unquote, move on. how do you start addressing this in a different way in 2022 than you were doing in 2021? 0, well there's a lot time pick here by and one of the things to also highlight is that no one on one hand we are just saying many countries, yes. have let's say dropped the ball and other ways that you can slow down

the spread of cov it. so i'm worry that the narrative of the conversation we're having right now is that either we're all cold hearted and we don't care and it's all live and we're happy for people to die because they're less off their onto the stage for quality and walk downs, right at that, but there's more, if you don't only have the option of draconian lockdown, you can have or filtration. you can have a ensuring that there are other types of treatments available. you can still encourage people to have support when they isolate you can still use things like face masks, et cetera. those are all the tools that are available to us. so i think that's where the balance lies. it's not saying at cove, it's totally overdue, nothing. i think some countries have done a really good job of ensuring that in addition to now having this booster campaign over the winter with the bi vaillant booster, to add up that

a boost in unity, that's a really important and then vaccine plus. so again, we don't need to completely polarize it to say, if you're not locked on, you're not doing anything because that that's not fair to a lot of other countries, but it's really a blended approach. so i think that in terms of, again, the, the unrest that we're seeing that's a result of other that kind of more extreme ways to deal with health issues. but one thing that's interesting is that all over the world, even in countries where there's more, let's say state media, censorship, the issued anti vax has not gone away. so there is some distrust of the vaccines in china just as we have seen that distrust in every other country. so i think this is a moment to try and learn from each other in terms of how do we continue to build trust within relief experts and science medicine. so that's

a coming together point around really using the tools that are available to us. and since, since you talk about the tools that are available, you mentioned the importance of vaccination are currently 18 year olds, 66 percent, just under 70 percent of 80 year olds in china, fully vaccinated compare that to and only 40 percent of had a booster. compare that to about 90 percent for the same age group for sorry, for seniors, for seniors, in se the us. how important is it to increase vaccination coverage in china? well, it is that again, we have a, i believe, 1400000000 people who, who are vaccinated. but there are 2 elements of this, the efficacy. the vaccines are used also, as you said, that most vulnerable age gap, where they're most likely to have the most severe consequences of co that there is this lack an uptake or other vaccination delivery failure.

and that needs to be again, and that's a big vulnerability spot within the coven strategy. and it could be why the rationale for the types of responses that we have seen. however, i think the site need to switch to m r n. a vaccines which you seem to be alluding to earlier that make a significant difference in your view. i think so. certainly, i mean there that, that is one a what you said when i, you don't understand. ok, where are you coming from with this idea that these vaccines, i mean lance, it's a new england journal medicine, they've all come out and said that if you've had 4 instances, either had coverage or you've had any mix of vaccines and you've had 4 of them they have the same advocacy, whether they are the chinese vaccine or other countries or m renee. so were you getting this idea that somehow or superior?

yes, we do see that there is a number to a w h o and he's, he's assured me that this is correct. and i also read it up on the journal. so which journal are you referring to? which study are you referring to when you say that m r n a is in total after for more effective than a mixture of these? well certainly the by the land booster that has become more available. there has been a recent publications with the jan there. there's a publication in jama. well, yeah, that, that highlights the, i think is the gap. now, it is difficult, i will say, because there has been some transparency um, surrounding issues around this i novak and sino farm. so she have more of the we would love to have more transparency on that aspect. but there are studies that indicate there's the em. ernie is the superior vaccine. at least if you have

a minute. i want to bring in a lease. yeah. been denied access. sorry guys i, i'm going to jump in here and i'm going to cut this just a little bit short, respectfully, i want to bring in a lisa from the economic standpoint because this is the 3rd major pillar that you really got to factor in here to provide a countrywide response, most of the economic forecasts are forecast or basing their forecast for chinese growth in 2023 on the assumption that china is going to open up and, and most forecasting houses believe that would happen in the 2nd half of 2023. now why, why do you make that assumption, or there are, there are factors there that you believe that's going to be the case. or do you just assume that that would be a, a reasonable response from the chinese government? well, i mean, most alleles are expecting the chinese government to, to engage in m. s. is a vaccination campaign, basically that it,

because independently owned on the efficacy of, of the vaccines. let's just think of increasing the, the, the, the vaccination ratio. yeah. especially for elderly. so it seems to me in no brain there that this is janet can do that. and i think when comparing the number of best to be frank, i think at and i'm an economy said, but the only thing i have to say them, they said before and then after. and that's when vaccinations were ready. and even if there's been additional at, gosh, it's after the vaccination rating there, of course, less so i guess china will have to cope with that as everybody else. but we have to be after the vaccination rate is as high as it has been elsewhere. said list a single were or any, you know, many, many countries in the world. so i guess that was chosen underlying assumptions, vaccination attire. all right, so lisa,

you were saying vaccination rate is one aspect the economist looked at to see what measures beijing might take. that would impact the economy. what other measures or economists looking at basically the degree of mobility. so what we've learned very clearly in the european case, 2nd wave i dealt and much more. so we only crohn is that you could have much more targeted measures. i even do use mobility, much less and still have an efficient cobit policy. so i think that's the other thing. can china find ways in which still keeps cases at bay, but in a way develops immunity because that's another important issue. you need to get to that immunity level and, and, and therefore avoid that. but at the same time, a harm the economy less. that's the question. in or do you expect 3rd in 2023 to

expect that next year china and choosing ping might finesse their policy mixed to deal with coven? i still think they're, we're dealing with it from a scientific perspective and, and they are not without false me why a year ago, last fall. and they took their foot off the gas in terms of getting people vaccinated. and the fact is that regardless of what vaccine you get, 6 months after you've had your last booster or your original 2 shots, the advocacy has gone down dramatically. and you can check that with the science side. and so you have to have basically every 6 months and not a booster, and china hasn't had that, the people did get it. it's in many cases, year, year and a half since they've had their original shots. they need to get boosted. so china's internal target, i believe, is 60 percent vaccinated within the last 6 months either whether booster or original ones. obviously they're going after the low hanging fruit in terms of the

elderly. there's about 24000000 ah, elderly, who have not ever been fascinated and absolutely what alicia has referenced this mobility issue very much on their mind. that's why they've been trying not to have these wholesale locked down. it's a tricky thing. and as i said, if they have the kind of medical facilities to do with it, they would do it. but, you know, the reason i was being difficult, cyril, is that right now you have 7 other countries that have many more deaths, including austria, with a fraction of the population. you have south korea, japan, taiwan. no one's talking about that. they have far more deaths. in that case, taiwan, 30 times more debt, 20 times more deaths. i mean, it just seems odd that china is always the one that's being blamed as somehow the villain in this when they been in the past more successful. yes, i right, they have to adjust. all right, well, look,

thank you very much. absolutely. nobody here is calling or framing china as a villain. and you will have noticed that coven policies around the world in all countries, not just china, and not exactly something that we under report. it's something that we look at pretty forensically across the world. but i know we heard all your arguments and we always appreciate a robust conversation here on al jazeera. so i want to thank all our guests. i know tang and lisa garcia, hero and on a picnic, and thank you for watching as well. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com to further discussion. good or facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter or handle a j inside story. from me several venue in the entire team here in doha lighting. ah,

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