COVID zero is here to stay

My thoughts today:

COVID zero is here to stay, it seems:

• The Communist Party’s house newspaper, the People’s Daily, earlier this week published two commentaries pledging support of COVID zero, ending hopes that China will relax its pandemic policy at the Party Congress that starts on October 16. Today’s People’s Daily triples down.
• Shanghai’s “Pudong New District announced it is hiring 575 specialized community-level COVID prevention and control workers on two-year contracts,” which Trivium China, a policy analysis company, says means we have to get used to the idea of two more years of COVID-zero policies.

Our word of the day is Arctic Circle (北极圈 běijí quān).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief