in mainland China the earlier Covid protocol was a bit too successful as folks did the vaccination, topped off with social-distancing / masking, and reinforced with good social order, and then got sloppy, started to go maskless without apparent consequence, and and and, and

the government felt sure about the harm-less nature of omicron and did 180 on policy, but without prepping the 180 with booster shots (people had not been boosting over the past 12-18 months because there was NO-covid) and phased implementation of 180, and now we are where we are