Zero-COVID Policy · Full chronicle and history

Due to the APEC summit from November 12 to 20, all bus services to and from Shenzhen have been suspended. Passengers who already purchased tickets have received cancellation notices, and only business class tickets remain available for high-speed trains to Shenzhen.

On September 11, the Guangdong Provincial CDC issued a marked confidential urgent notice (Guangdong CDC Transmission Prevention Letter [2026] No. 73), requiring strengthened prevention of chikungunya and dengue fever before and after the Mid‑Autumn and National Day holidays, including mandatory testing during heat, household inspections, meeting disinfection standards, and urging avoidance of excessive epidemic control that could spark public opinion.

China's National Health Commission held a press conference to address claims circulating on social media that COVID-19 in August is caused by a new and more severe strain.

On August 21, 2026, netizens in Shiwan, Foshan, Guangzhou Province reported that after dengue fever cases appeared locally, the economic cooperative notified businesses and workers in its jurisdiction to bring their ID cards and go collectively to the senior activity center for blood testing.

Dissatisfied with the long-term, strict dynamic zero-COVID lockdown policies, people across China launched rare nationwide protests. Demonstrators held up blank sheets of paper to symbolize censorship, eventually forcing the authorities to make a sudden and chaotic reversal of their pandemic control policies.

Bai Yansong interviewed Liang Wannian on the program News 1+1, raising nine questions about the economic cost and necessity of the dynamic zero-COVID policy; the program only arranged for Liang Wannian alone to answer and reiterated the policy's rationality.

On April 29, 2020, Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, formally announcing for the first time that decisive results had been achieved in the defense of Wuhan and the defense of Hubei, and that major strategic results had been won in the nationwide fight to prevent and control the epidemic.

Xi Jinping convened a national teleconference, summarizing for officials the deployment of epidemic prevention and control and the so-called institutional advantages.

Under the exposure of insider information and public pressure, the Chinese government admitted human-to-human transmission and announced a surge in cases within 24 hours, followed by Wuhan's announcement of a lockdown.

The video claims that during China's pandemic lockdowns, ocean freighters stopped sailing and some goods supplies were disrupted, prompting overseas businesses to turn to other countries for procurement; public reports only show an increase in ships waiting at anchor in waters around Shanghai during the 2022 lockdown, with no source found for a widespread halt of ocean freighters.

China implemented strict zero-COVID policies and lockdowns over the long term starting with the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, 2020, broadly restricting people's movement; after the "New Ten Measures" were issued on December 7, 2022, it effectively abandoned dynamic zero-COVID.