Im Jahr 2020 hatte China 9 der 14 geschäftigsten Flughäfen im Passagierverkehr, obwohl sie geschlossen waren. Ein besonderer Grund dafür?

Yes, because draconian rules around Covid wasn’t an exercise in dictatorship, but a successful attempt to deliberately contain the virus before a vaccine could be developed. This approach successfully quarantined some cities, while life in other cities was normal. Busy airports in most of China is evidence of this normality. So instead of lax rules on everyone, and everyone basically self-quarantining themselves, China approach was to heavily and quickly quarantine specific places, with no quarantines on most other places.

As the virus developed, Covid became more easily transmittable but also weaker due to increased general immunity and vaccine development. By 2022, variants of Covid could not be contained using China’s approach and China eventually stopped quarantines altogether. However, China’s approach prompted debate about its effectiveness in stopping deaths, with many observers comparing the high number of deaths outside China and their incredulity for why Chinese deaths were much lower. Even some going as far as claiming China was hiding all these deaths.

In fact, China with draconian quarantines, managed to keep the virus at bay, as evidenced by the high numbers of internal flight passengers, was economically resilient because quarantine for some meant normal lives for others, and suffered fewer number of deaths.