Zero covid reduces demand, which helps keep inflation down. Zero covid also drives out certain types of foreign investors, whose market share is then taken over by domestic companies. Of course there are many costs, but there are also some small but long term benefits.
In the west covid is ravaging the healthcare system and causing potentially disabling long covid which permanently decreases worker productivity. And this is happening during the summer, when covid waves are usually more easily controlled. Once all the evidence shows that endemic covid in a highly vaccinated population doesn't cause a disaster in the winter, zero covid should be abandoned. But stopping it right now would be extremely stupid. There isn't enough time to give the whole population a booster vaccine before the autumn. The ideal timing is to start giving everyone their third/fourth dose in the spring and then stop controls during the summer, so that the virus spreads in the least disruptive way.
In the west covid is ravaging the healthcare system and causing potentially disabling long covid which permanently decreases worker productivity. And this is happening during the summer, when covid waves are usually more easily controlled. Once all the evidence shows that endemic covid in a highly vaccinated population doesn't cause a disaster in the winter, zero covid should be abandoned. But stopping it right now would be extremely stupid. There isn't enough time to give the whole population a booster vaccine before the autumn. The ideal timing is to start giving everyone their third/fourth dose in the spring and then stop controls during the summer, so that the virus spreads in the least disruptive way.
