There are several possibilities that I think are worth exploring.

Germ Freaks
This virus may genuinely terrify the ruling class atop the CCP.

It’s a psyop
The short term hard lockdowns in Wuhan in early 2020 were falsely advertised as an astonishing scientific success, but were most effective as an information operation to shut down the world, while seeding the idea that lockdowns would help to crush the virus.

National Hubris/Believing their own press
Every country modeled their lockdowns, a novel concept that did not exist prior to 2020, after the Wuhan lockdown. This level of admiration may have acted to affirm China’s well-known, baked in superiority complex, and convince the Communist Party that it alone has the technocratic authoritarian capacity to wage a successful war on a virus.

Internal politics
There remains tremendous infighting in the ranks of the Communist Party. Shanghai is perceived as one of the more “liberal” cities in China, and the lockdowns may have been motivated by competing political factions desperate to win over influence and power.

What is motivating the CCP's Shanghai lockdown?
https://dossier.substack.com/p/what-is-motivating-the-ccps-shanghai

It's definitely a variant of the 'saving face' theory 1). Here are several factors that play in:

1. China's urban areas are the highest density human populations on the planet. In particular in Guangdong and on the east coast.
2. The SARS epidemic was very traumatic in some pockets. It was like a much shorter but more potent health scare with similar effects. A bit related to the above.
3. China's government is sometimes perceived as uber-efficient and effective in the West. That's only half-true, at very best. It can also be comically ineffective; so much of what bureaucrats do is to satisfy what their superiors seem to demand; so often what is actually required is extremely obtuse. There are communication problems because speech is not free, even at the deep level (what a middle manager can say to a boss; what a local party official can say to a high ranking CCP member). Lack of that flow of information leads to really bad outcomes, often.
4. Xi Jinping is really very authoritarian, and seems from what I can tell to have very rigid ideas about things. Once he had decided what his COVID19 policy was, you can imagine (see 3) how hard it would be to change it. (The CCP, anyway, is all about top-down control, it's like its DNA .. to a hammer everything is a nail; a biological disease in the society is treated like a mind-disease (people having 'wrongthink') - stamped out with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately this is a ridiculously impractical idea, but see the previous point).
5. Don't underestimate how stupid humans are in groups :)

Re: 2) sure it could well be from that lab, I'd say far more likely than not at this stage, but no way there's some hidden effect (just my guess of course).

Re: 3) Can't see that being even a little bit plausible tbh

Depopulation theory.

Miles Guo states that Xi's strategy is to starve out and have 1 in 2500 people in Shanghai die. I think the COVID is a cover up strategy.

See: https://twitter.com/cherryfatcat/status/1513370210824241158

Long Thread that hints at ' starvation ' history:
https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1512734595485106179

Some additional facts to ponder:

For one, China has a demographic time bomb going on. If they don't start figuring out how to reduce population soon, they will have hoards of old people and a small young population.

Second, there were massive floods in the last year, likely that damaged a lot of crops they had locally, leading them to increase their Ag imports from the US in the FY 2021 year to a record level, see link below.

Third, China depends a lot on US Agriculture exports for food to sustain their population, about 36 Billion dollars was exported in the last year, as the largest importing trade partner - see https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-trade/u-s-agricultural-trade/outlook-for-u-s-agricultural-trade/

My suspicion, given China's polluted environment is that they don't have the capability to be self sustaining in food production and want to decouple themselves from the west, the only way is to 'off' some of the population down to manageable numbers. this has happened before in history, have plenty of friends and family who tell stories of this.

I realize that this is all a bit 'conspiracy' theory and does not follow MSM, please don't censor me here. If you like what I posted, let me know. :)

I think everything is a financial cover-up.
Somehow this ties back to a crumbling reserve asset, and supply chain failures.
I don’t have any specific evidence, I just don’t believe the CCP are this big of germaphobes or have the health/wellness of their people in their mind.

china is not as smart as you think and believe this is the correct way to deal with a virus similar to SARS

Seems pretty clearly 1.

2. They may have had more information in March 2020 but at this point it's unlikely they know more than us given we've had 2 years of experience dealing with millions of infections while they were set on zero-COVID policy.
3. Torturing your own people seems like a pretty passive aggressive way to destroy the USD.

Unfortunately while zero COVID was attainable with decent success for the better part of 2 years, Omicron is an order of magnitude more transmissible. China convinced their people that this was a winning strategy and are now unwilling to pivot. Sadly this drove vaccine reluctance amongst their most vulnerable, elderly population. Omicron is now free to run wild through an immune naive population.

New Zealand wisely abandoned this policy after getting a significant portion of their elderly population vaccinated.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FN0isMFXsAQbJH8?format=jpg
img source from March HK vs NZ

China: It's for your health

[Video]

This is my favorite Channel for Chinese news: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay6PqrrPI_o

Here are some other theories:

1. The Shanghai lockdown keeps the idea of virus containment alive.
2. The Shanghai lockdown reassures western trading partners that China is as dumb as they are.
3. The Shanghai lockdown is useful political theatre to the CCP, further binding China’s population to the Party.

A hardline communist like Xi Jinping, who spent time in a forced labor camp as a youth, isn’t about to lose sleep over some bankers in Shanghai missing a few meals. On the contrary, China’s top leaders are more inclined to see the lockdown as character building; a lesson to the rich kids that sacrifice to the Party comes first, and a reminder to the people all across China that they really are all in this together.

Does the Shanghai Lockdown Absolve the Chinese Communist Party?
https://michaelpsenger.substack.com/p/does-the-shanghai-lockdown-absolve

Vector vaccines aren't as effective as mRNA. And china can't produce neither accept mRNA vaccines.

Omicron make zero covid useless.

It is 1. Occam's razo.

To me I look at lockdowns as their only method to taper commodity and consumer price inflation, it's a version of jawboning a rate hike or actually raising interest rates

China has a major shortage of energy and water along with a few other broken supply chains slowing down manufacturing so I see it as a way to delay hoping to keep people from spending and using more energy

One theory: they’re just fucking stoopid. And it presents a great opportunity to rough out the citizens, thus they will learn to comply even better.
-Alvar

Don't mistake the lab leak for the successful attempt to straw man the lab leak into the "it came from" and "it was designed in" a lab conspiracy theory, which is then more easily attacked and discredited than the truth.

"Gain of functionality" research isn't designing and just because it leaked from the lab doesn't mean they know anything about it.