As China lifts its stringent zero-COVID policy, public health messaging has taken a U-turn. People are grappling with the whiplash, trying to find a way to protect themselves and loved ones.
. And with access to the global internet cut off for most, there are few alternatives to state media and its constellation of aligned social media accounts, says Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.Additionally, non-state media outlets are vulnerable to government crackdowns.
, that suggested without evidence that vaccine maker Moderna manufactured the virus. The Global Times extensively cited the coverage, using it to attack other unsupported theories about the virus's origin, including the one that suggested it leaked from a government research lab in Wuhan. Other smaller social media accounts made videos of the report, putting"British Media" in the headlines.
"The Chinese diaspora has played a very useful role here to share with people back in China about their personal COVID experience," Chen says,"knowing that in most cases it will not be that serious." With the disease rapidly cascading from large cities to towns and villages, the Chinese government needs to act fast to get medically-sound public health messages out to the most vulnerable people, says Chen.
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