The silent protests in China against zero-Covid policies offer an insight into the importance of cities during a pandemic. Only when cities such as Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, and New York city were shutdown, that the economic losses from their shutdown were appreciated.

Given the recent resurgence of Covid in China, we examine which governance model works better. In India, cities were remarkable. During the lockdown, people entering Indian cities were subject to to testing, contact tracing, and were even quarantined if found to be infected.

India started off with the world’s most stringent lockdown and controls at the beginning of the pandemic. In our research, we attempted to understand the lockdown strategies in cities with different government structures and assess the consequences of lockdown policy — its impacts on citizens, and vulnerable groups. We investigated the government policies and community responses of Covid in Shanghai and Bengaluru, which have quite different government structures, based on surveys with policy makers, slum dwellers, businesses and Resident Welfare Associations.

Bengaluru study

In Bengaluru, income of slum dwellers declined post the lockdown, due to restrictions on vending and other economic activity. Food availability was not a problem in 2021, compared with 2020. Very few RWAs in Bengaluru worked with the government during Covid, as they independently curbed the virus’ spread. Policymakers recognised that NGOs helped during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. Associational framework, as pointed out by Xuefei Ren, seemed to be partially effective, given the weak local governments in India. Our survey of small businesses in Bengaluru indicated that they were adversely affected during the lockdowns, although the impact was less in 2021 compared to 2020.

Quite in contrast, as pointed out by Ren, China adopted a territorial framework using “grid” for surveillance. This surveillance was institutionalised through an ongoing experiment with “grid style governance” through GIS mapping, with each “grid” comprising a few residential buildings of 300 to 500 households. A management team was appointed to take responsibility of each grid, composed of representatives from district governments, street offices, resident committees, homeowners’ associations, and property management companies.

While the territorial governance with GIS mapping is something for India to learn, China was till recently obsessed by its zero-Covid policy with rising cases in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Xi’an. In this it has much to learn from India and other countries where Covid has become endemic. The definition of zero-Covid policy has changed over time in China’s cities. For instance, during the June 2022 lockdown, zero-Covid in Shanghai was defined as “no cases reported outside the quarantine zones for two days in a row”.

Mass virus testing has become a new normal in China. Thousands of coronavirus testing sites have been set up in many locations in Shanghai after the lockdown of June 2022. To enter shopping malls or offices, people needed to show negative test results. This policy restricts the travel of residents and could cause major economic disruption. India has relaxed all Covid restrictions, with a cautious approach which has serendipitously coincided with the decline of infections, as everywhere else in the world.

A zero-Covid policy is not sustainable. This means that the Chinese government should be tolerant to some Covid cases, assuming that those people follow the protocols of staying at home.

The writers are, respectively, professor, ISEC, India, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, Canada, and IAS officer, Government of Karnataka