China’s existing COVID-19 containment strategy, characterized by firm and rapid response to cut its transmission and block new outbreaks, should be sufficient for dealing with the new Omicron variant（变种）of the novel coronavirus, health experts and officials said recently.

They added that the country’s dynamic zero-case policy should continue to be enforced this winter and spring, as new modeling shows that dropping it prematurely would risk causing “a huge outbreak”.

Wu Zunyou, a chief epidemiologist, said the new variant appears to be more contagious（传染的）than the Delta variant due to its exceptionally high number of spike mutations.

“But no matter how the virus mutates, regular public health measures, such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing and washing hands, will be effective against all variants,” Wu said.

Zhang Wenhong, a well-known doctor from Shanghai, said China’s current “rapid response and dynamic zeroing of new infections” can deal with all variants.

The strategy has also enabled China to win a window of opportunity in terms of building up scientific support to fight the virus, he said. Ongoing work includes increasing reserves of vaccines（疫苗）and drugs to support the global battle against the pandemic, and boosting inventories（存货）of China’s public health and medical resources.

According to Wu Zunyou, China’s overall epidemic situation remains stable and under control against a backdrop of surging infections globally. “This remarkable outcome is largely due to the central approach of interrupting the spread of the virus, blocking new outbreaks and implementing quarantine（隔离）for incoming travelers,” he said.

“By the most conservative estimates, the strategy had avoided 47.8 million COVID-19 infections and 950, 000 related deaths in China,” he said.

As the outlook for the pandemic remains serious for this winter and spring, Wu said these measures should continue to be enforced.

“Adjustment（调整）of virus control measures should be done extremely carefully and with every detail and procedure being taken into consideration, so as to avoid making mistakes or taking the wrong path,” he said.

Migration (迁移) has become a flashpoint for debate in many countries. But research from the McKinsey Global Institute(MGI) finds that it generates significant economic benefits-and more effective integration of immigrants (移民) could increase those benefits.

Moving more labor to higher-productivity settings boosts global GDP. Migrants of all skill levels contribute to this effect, whether through entrepreneurship (创业) or through freeing up natives for higher-value work. In fact, migrants make up just 3. 4 percent of the world’s population, bur MGI’ research finds that they contribute nearly 10 percent of global GDP. They contributed roughly $6. 7 trillion to global GDP in 2015-some $3 trillion more than they would have produced in their origin countries. Developed nations realize more than 90 percent of this effect.

Employment rates are slightly lower for immigrants than for native workers in top destinations, but this varies by skill level and by region of origin. Wide-ranging academic evidence shows that immigration does not harm native employment or wages, although there can be short-term negative effects if there is a large inflow of migrants to a small region, if migrants are close substitutes for native workers, or if the destination economy is experiencing a downturn.

Realizing the benefits of immigration depends on how well new arrivals are integrated (融合) into their destination country’s labor market and into society. Today immigrants tend to earn 20 to 30 percent less than native-born workers. But if countries narrow that wage gap to just 5 to 10 percent by integrating immigrants more effectively across various aspects of education, housing, health, and community engagement, they could generate an additional boost of $800 billion to $1 trillion to worldwide economic output annually. This is a relatively conservative goal, but it can produce broader positive effects, including lower poverty rates and higher overall productivity in destination economies.

The stakes are high. The success or failure of integration can reverberate (回荡) for many years, influencing whether second-generation immigrants become fully participating citizens who reach their full productive potential or remain in a poverty trap.

According to conventional wisdom in the West, there was little formal law in China prior to the 20th century, and what did exist was completely penal (惩罚性的) in nature. In fact, this characterization wrongly states the law and legal institutions（法律制定）in pre-20th-century China.

Recent archaeological work suggests that law in China antedates (早于) the life and thought of the influential thinker Kongfuzi or Confucius(551-479 BCE). Yet Confucianism (儒家思想) is central to an understanding of pre-20th-century Chinese law. Confucianism held that the “five relationships”-those between ruler and subject, husband and wife, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, and friend and friend-are the foundation of a well-ordered society.

Confucians stressed that each individual should promote his inner virtue (de) and demonstrate filial piety (xiao), which enable him to maintain and strengthen these relationships and to properly meet the responsibilities that go with them, in Confucius’ words in the collection of sayings known as Lunyu,

If the people be led by laws...they will try to avoid punishment,

but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue...

they will have a sense of shame and moreover will become good.

The earliest imperial Chinese legal code (法典), that of the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE), was made under Qin Shihuangdi, who was far more influenced by Legalism (法家思想), a philosophical school whose representative thinkers took human nature to be cruel. They believed accordingly that law would provide a more effective mechanism (机制) for social order than Confucian morality would. The Qin sought to destroy Confucianism-by burning texts and also scholars--but was unsuccessful. In fact, the Qin code reserved elements similar to Confucianism. The Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) filled the ranks of officialdom (官僚) with Confucian scholars and reconstructed and strengthened the five relationships. In a process that was called the “Confucianization of law,” the Han Code provided that offenses committed by juniors (e. g., sons) against their senior relations (e. g., fathers) should be punished more severely (严厉地) than the opposite, though according to Confucian thinking it would be better that morality should be observed and that no punishment need be invoked (援用).