Locked-down Chengdu residents furious after being trapped in buildings during China earthquake

Liu Chaojie, the director of La Trobe University's China Health Program, said there was no indication Beijing was going to change its "COVID-zero" policy any time soon. "Until this goal is changed, neither the policy of lockdown nor the mass nucleic acid test will change," he said. Mass nucleic acid tests are considered more accurate than the antigen tests used in Western countries, but take longer to process. Professor Chaojie added that local authorities' implementation of Beijing's policies was sometimes harsher than the central government intended. "Because the policy from above is not very precise, is actually very difficult to correct."