The US-China Rift Is a Health Hazard

The COVID-19 experience may have hurt the world’s ability to fight the next pandemic, largely because relations between the U.S. and China have tanked.

- By Fred Guterl. Photographs by Kevin Frayer, Getty, Chris Jackson, Ke Has, Xinhau

ATHLETES COMPETING AT THE WINTER olympics in Beijing have gotten first-hand experience of China’s prowess in controlling COVID-19 outbreaks. Unlike the often vague and inconsistent policies of the U.S., Beijing has perfected the art of the lockdown. Athletes have been strictly cordoned off from the outside world, required to wear masks and submit to daily tests, and isolated in their rooms upon a negative result.

The safeguards do more than merely protect athletes from infection. They also protect China’s newfound reputation as a competent steward of global public health in a pandemic crisis.

The idea that China, less than 20 years since bungling the SARS outbreak, has raised its game to world-class standards might be cause for celebration. A Chinese public-health system that is alert to pandemic pathogens and can bring the best technology and know-how to early warning of new viruses should be reassuring not just to the people of China but to the rest of the world. Yet China’s strategy of relying on strict lockdown measures to keep the Omicron variant at bay may not be sustainable in the coming months. And animosity between the U.S. and China raises concerns about the world’s prospects for battling future outbreaks.

In the realm of pandemic prevention, cooperation is key. Nations are far better at fighting pandemics when they collaborate than when they go it alone. The COVID-19 pandemic may have hurt the world’s ability to fight the next pandemic, rather than improved it, in large part because U.S.-China relations have deteriorated.