COVID have been under control for a long time in CN, there’s lambda outbreak here and there, but most of them are eliminated fast. Giant exhibition have been hold for more than a year now. And CN is getting kids back to school
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzrxrN_3seo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJk7VGldrYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix1RY-2C9lA
Most of the corps are back to their 996 schedules, this includes low tier, manual heavy sweatshops. you can ask people who have contact in China, they will all tell you the same thing.
Knowing COVID, it's not possible "fake" it at this scale nor this long. They had COVID in control, more or less.