  The Dynamic Zero-COVID Policy in China spanned three years and diverse
emotional responses have been observed at different times. In this paper, we
retrospectively analyzed public sentiments and perceptions of the policy,
especially regarding how they evolved over time, and how they related to
people's lived experiences. Through sentiment analysis of 2,358 collected Weibo
posts, we identified four representative points, i.e., policy initialization,
sharp sentiment change, lowest sentiment score, and policy termination, for an
in-depth discourse analysis through the lens of appraisal theory. In the end,
we reflected on the evolving public sentiments toward the Dynamic Zero-COVID
Policy and proposed implications for effective epidemic prevention and control
measures for future crises.
