Aleph, UCLA Undergraduate Research Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper seeks to reconstruct the People’s Republic of China’s COVID response from the beginning of the outbreak to life after the end of zero-COVID (end of 2019-early 2023). I present four different periods within this timeframe where China adjusted its strategy, both domestically and internationally. Namely, these are the early phase (E), pre-vaccine phase (PrV), post-vaccine (PV) phase, and post-zero-COVID (PZC) phase. Given the recent jettisoning of zero-COVID policies by Chinese authorities in late 2022 following the A4 Revolution 白紙 革命, I believe this paper serves to add greater context to the events leading up to this, contextualize the situation in China after zero-COVID, and situate China’s domestic response to COVID within global discussions of how better to manage pandemic response.