China's Covid success compared to Europe shows lockdowns are the first step, not a solution

As much of Europe stares down the barrel of renewed coronavirus lockdowns, and a potentially miserable -- and deadly -- winter to come, China is going from strength to strength. On Monday, the country posted positive economic growth for the second quarter in a row, underlining how speedily the world's second-largest economy has recovered. That comes in the wake of an apparently successful experiment with allowing mass domestic travel, as millions of people criss-crossed China for the Golden Week national holiday.

For many in Europe, China's approach to the coronavirus is characterized by the initial draconian, 76-day lockdown seen in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where cases of the virus were first detected late last year. But other parts of the country never saw such stringent restrictions, even during the early stages of the pandemic when similar lockdowns were introduced in cities throughout China.

China's success in controlling the coronavirus is not so much a product of those early control measures -- though these have been utilized effectively to halt regional flare-ups -- but how the country handles things after people are allowed to move around again.

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