Leaving a fine mist of disinfectant in their wake, China’s hazmat-clad health workers are cleaning homes, roads, parcels and even people — but more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say it is a futile measure against the virus.
China is tied to a “zero COVID” strategy, wielding snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines as part of unrelenting efforts to quash virus outbreaks no matter the cost to the economy or freedoms of its people.
Among its arsenal of virus controls is disinfectant spraying, which a top Shanghai official earlier this month lauded as a key part of a “grand assault” on the virus.
Photo: AFP
Footage shows legions of “big whites” — as health workers in hazmat suits are referred to in China — spraying apartments after their inhabitants have been taken into state quarantine.
The sight has become one of the most visual expressions of China’s “zero COVID” policy, which has taken on a political dimension as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has pegged the legitimacy of his leadership on protecting Chinese lives from the virus.
Personal possessions and home furnishings lie amid clouds of cleanser, the images show, while in other cases the targets are city streets, walls and parks.
However, such labor-intensive campaigns are relatively pointless against a virus that spreads through droplets expelled in coughs and sneezes into the air, experts said.
“Since infection through touching contaminated surfaces is not an important route of transmission, extensive and aggressive use of disinfectant is not necessary,” said Yanzhong Huang (黃嚴忠), a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Transmission through contaminated surfaces and objects is possible, but comparatively rare.
The odds have not deterred China’s disinfectant sprayers.
Shanghai alone had sterilized 13,000 areas as of May 2 under a policy targeting infected people’s homes, apartment blocks and “preventive” disinfection of entire compounds, Shanghai Vice Mayor Liu Duo (劉多) said.
The city has seethed for weeks under a shifting mosaic of lockdowns that have seen some of its 25 million residents scuffle with police and unleash a flood of fury and frustration on social media.
In one social media video verified by Agence France-Presse, a hazmat-suited health worker brandishing a powerful hose sprays clouds of disinfectant on a resident’s bed, desk and clothes.
Other clips show workers wandering through streets and housing compounds, casually spritzing walls, scooters and even the ground.
One Shanghai resident said that his home was sterilized twice after they returned from quarantine, with his family being ordered to wait outside for an hour each time.
While the virus can transmit through surfaces, “it cannot survive long outside the human body, so it is unnecessary to sterilize outdoor surfaces,” Huang said. “The widespread use of some chemical disinfectants, such as chlorine disinfectant, could have harmful impacts on human health [and] the environment.”
Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious-disease expert at Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Novena Hospital, said outdoor disinfection is “absolutely pointless.”
Leong said the disinfection drive was mostly “a lot of visible intervention that pleases administrators” without doing much to prevent the virus spreading.
However, Beijing’s desire to demonstrate its commitment to a flagship policy is perhaps the more important aspect, Huang said.
The move “conjures up the image of a heroic battle against an invisible enemy,” he said.
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