Unlike in the West, there was never any question of conflating SARS-CoV-2 with flu. Letting the disease run through the population unchecked in an attempt to achieve “herd immunity” was not entertained as an option. For Beijing—preoccupied as it was with delivering “output legitimacy”—letting “nature take its course” was unthinkable.17 To their detriment, European and American policymakers found it harder to detach themselves from the cold-blooded calculus of the flu paradigm.
