[HN Gopher] The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown
___________________________________________________________________
The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown
Author : ilamont
Score : 158 points
Date : 2022-04-15 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (storiesfromthestateofexception.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (storiesfromthestateofexception.wordpress.com)
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Even New Zealand, an isolated island, gave up the pretence of of
| zero covid!
| memish wrote:
| Why are they still pursuing Zero Covid? I know the article
| includes some speculation on this, but what's the best
| explanation?
| sva_ wrote:
| I find it fairly amusing that people who believe in the
| "lableak-hypothesis" seem to usually also be in the camp of
| people who don't think the virus is too bad. If the virus
| really came from the lab, then presumably the Chinese know more
| about its (long term) effects than the rest of us. And looking
| at the fact, that they have this zero COVID policy, that should
| absolutely terrify anyone believing in the aforementioned
| hypothesis.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| If you abide by the lableak theory, then part of its mythos
| was that he NIH funded the research, making them equally
| knowledgeable on it.
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/nih-admits-
| funding-r...
| _dain_ wrote:
| >If the virus really came from the lab, then presumably the
| Chinese know more about its (long term) effects than the rest
| of us.
|
| why would this be the case? any secret informational
| advantage they had at the start evaporated as soon as it got
| outside their borders. and today's virus is very different to
| the OG one they had in the lab before it was (presumably
| accidentally) leaked.
| extheat wrote:
| > then presumably the Chinese know more about its (long term)
| effects than the rest of us
|
| Not necessarily true. The lab in question has been known to
| house coronavirus variants and done bat research. SARS-cov-2
| isn't the first coronavirus out of China, remember SARS-
| cov-1. This is not in dispute. What was in dispute is if it
| leaked from there or not, or spread naturally outside human
| error. The proximity of the lab to the first cases, the
| measures taken there before the known spread of the virus and
| their attempt to destroy information about it is what leads
| to speculation. We may never know what actually happened
| outside anecdotal information without more information from
| China. Given the low likelihood of it being human engineered
| though, we should probably still be able to trace how it
| evolved in nature before spreading to humans. I don't see the
| correlation between this and the zero-COVID policy. Labs
| (ethically) work with pathogens all the time, they obviously
| don't inject viruses into humans without substantial cause.
| nomel wrote:
| > Labs (ethically) work with pathogens all the time, they
| obviously don't inject viruses into humans without
| substantial cause.
|
| There's a long history that shows this is _clearly_ not how
| lab leaks work.
| qwytw wrote:
| I find it more amusing that someone can think that the could
| CCP be seriously concerned about the long term wellbeing of
| the Chinese people. Surely if it disportionately affects
| older individuals, especially in the light of the demographic
| crisis China will being facing in not to distant future (and
| with no social security or widespread private pension schemes
| and limited immigration it would be reasonable that it will
| hurt the Chinese people more than those living in the west),
| culling as a many of them would help increase the average
| productivity of their 'citizens'?
|
| What I just wrote must sounding disgusting, but let's not
| forget we're talking about country which until very recently
| practised forced abortion upon women choose to have more than
| a single child (pursuing an absurd and nonsensical policy
| which might imply that the CCP is not the most rational
| bunch...) and is still sending thousands if not millions of
| people in to concentration/reeducation camps merely because
| of their ethnicity and religion.
| bllguo wrote:
| So if the CCP truly cared about the people they'd cull the
| elderly. This is the quality of discussion on China these
| days on HN. The idea that "hey, obviously they wouldn't
| consider that, maybe they're not the comic-book villains
| I've been led to believe!" doesn't even cross your mind.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| Maybe China knows more about the real long term effects of the
| virus because they have been studying it for a long time?
| dictateawayyyee wrote:
| Probably the same 3 reasons that seem to drive most
| authoritarian stay-the-course decisions:
|
| * Can't admit the original plan isn't working without appearing
| weak.
|
| * Operating on information corrupted by "compounding optimism"
| from every level of subordinates.
|
| * Repercussions for bad outcomes are unlikely.
| gpm wrote:
| Because it's been working, both from an economics and health
| perspective, and the locals seem to be in support of it, except
| for in Shanghai
|
| Here's a well known person in Shenzhen discussing it. Obviously
| be aware that any source in China can't speak too directly
| against the government, especially the central government.
| However I feel rather confident that this thread is a pretty
| good representation of her actual opinion having read a lot of
| her tweets on the topic.
|
| https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/151481834568977614...
| throwaway73838 wrote:
| Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
| ccbccccbbcccbb wrote:
| And it corrupts not only itself, but also the society it
| commands in general. That's why you had to use a throwaway to
| post an obvious truth that is guaranteed to trigger karma
| decrementers.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think at this point it's sheer stubbornness and to save face
| for the administration.
|
| I personally believe that Zero Covid was a great strategy right
| out the gate but it's no longer appropriate since this is
| clearly a global pandemic... but maybe Xi is afraid of looking
| wrong in retrospect.
| mpfundstein wrote:
| because failure is not an option for regimes like the CCP.
| beefman wrote:
| Enforcing silly, ineffective policies may serve the same
| purpose as publishing silly, unpersuasive propaganda, in the
| sense of this recent article:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30962199
| dougmwne wrote:
| As near I can tell it is an arbitrary decision of an
| authoritarian government that is too deep into sunk cost to
| reverse course.
| xster wrote:
| What's the sunken cost of this policy?
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| - lower natural immunity rates because zero COVID had been
| successful
|
| - lower vaccination rates
|
| - vaccine drives prioritized the young and healthy (the idea
| being they can handle side effects so this seemed like the best
| way to achieve herd immunity)
|
| - the newer strains are super infectious and would overwhelm
| the healthcare system
|
| They don't have a good way out now. They should have used the
| time they got last year to buy MRNA vaccines, but they did not.
|
| The central government has likely given up on zero COVID but
| are sticking with those policies for now to "flatten the curve"
| while this wave takes its course.
| AJ007 wrote:
| Also they have a vaccine that may not work.
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| It helps prevent infection and temper symptoms but it's not
| as effective as the mRNA vaccines.
|
| Something like 50% vs 90% though that could be old data.
| lazide wrote:
| At least one new variant can burn through even double
| shot vaccinated and boosted in extreme cases. Due to
| various factors outside of my control, my toddler has now
| gotten Covid 4 times in the last year (10 months really).
| Antigen and PCR confirmed.
|
| Most recently, a minor window of exposure got my oldest
| sick (double shot vaccinated), and taking care of both of
| them eventually got me sick (double shot vaccinated,
| boosted, AND took care of my toddler in isolation for
| weeks at a time during his most infectious times the
| prior 3 times). I've had side effects/immune response
| before obviously, but never tested positive. This time I
| tested positive.
|
| No major adverse symptoms at least, but sick like with a
| moderate flu for a week+ despite all that is no fun.
|
| Folks with no prior exposure and a weaker vaccine? Yikes.
| version_five wrote:
| Afaik those numbers are for covid classic. For Omicron et
| al, I don't think the mRNA vaccines do anything except
| "prevent severe infection". They dont stop catching or
| transmitting it. No idea how the chinese and other
| vaccines fare against the new variants.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yup. Failure is going to come at a horrendous price--I
| wouldn't be surprised at a 7-figure death toll. They're
| desperately clinging to hope even though containment has
| obviously failed.
| martinald wrote:
| I think the other thing is China has somewhat demonised the
| rest of the world for is covid response, and it seems there
| was a lot of 'pride' at the fact the CCP had kept it at bay.
| Sort of "only the Chinese governmental system can save you",
| which for many months/years seemed true, with most of the
| rest of the world struggling to cope, wheras China was
| completely normal for a long time.
|
| It's clear this is going to end extremely badly. Take a look
| at Hong Kong's death rate climb when it got out of control
| there - and HK is much richer than mainland China, with some
| of the best medical care in the world, and HK did have a fair
| bit of mRNA vaccine usage, whereas China has close to 0.
| ahmedalsudani wrote:
| Yeah it does look like their initial success has set them
| up for a much bigger shock with Omicron. It's so much more
| infectious and is actually still rather severe. Most of us
| here have been vaccinated and/or have some natural immunity
| from prior waves, which made Omicron seem mild.
|
| China seems to have a perfect storm of a healthcare system
| already stretched thin, low immunity among the population,
| and a super infectious strain.
|
| The lockdowns are probably their best option but they also
| need to ramp up mRNA vaccinations in tandem. Zero COVID is
| unsustainable.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I mean, the US has had a million covid deaths. China presumably
| doesn't want 3 million deaths?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is the obvious response and I am confused every time I
| see an article criticizing these lockdowns. They all seem to
| be written from the American herd immunity point of view,
| neglecting that we paved the way to herd immunity with the
| bodies of a million of our own citizens.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| The problem is the lack of an endgame. For better or worse,
| Covid is endemic in Europe and the continental US[0]. All
| it takes is one false-negative test at the border[1] and a
| tourist or business traveler could easily create tens of
| millions of potential infectees (airport -> subway ->
| secondary city) to requisite additional lockdowns of tens
| of millions of people.
|
| [0]And quite probably large parts of Asia, including
| countries bordering China if not China itself. [1]Or
| rogue/lucky virus. I don't recall if it was substantiated,
| but I believe New Zealand at one point credibly
| hypothesized an outbreak had resulted from a virus
| preserved in a frozen food shipment.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think the end game is widespread vaccination of their
| population. Unfortunately, China's elderly are even worse
| anti-vaxxers than we are.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Combined with their refusal to use western vaccines. If
| your only goal is to protect your citizens then there
| doesn't seem to be a good rational to make that decision;
| this situation is at least somewhat political.
|
| I'm curious if this will keep occurring during the N
| months it takes for them to develop and test efficacious
| mRNA vaccines and deliver them to a significant portion
| of the population.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >China's elderly are even worse anti-vaxxers than we are
|
| And that's within the scope of their rights, as stated in
| documents like UN's Universal Declaration of Human
| Rights.
| uxp100 wrote:
| I mean, I think people believe that there would not be that
| many deaths because China has a heavily vaccinated
| population and a less strict lockdown could still be
| stricter than anything the US did, perhaps something closer
| to Australia.
|
| On the first point, I think that the Chinese vaccine is
| much worse than the mRNA vaccines against Omicron, but I'm
| not sure what that would mean for death rates. On the
| second point, well, I guess the Chinese government tried
| that to some degree, but didn't feel it was going well.
| gyf304 wrote:
| We must protect human lives at all costs, even at the cost of
| human lives.
|
| Jokes aside, what we really want to know is that - what are the
| human lives lost lockdown v.s. no lockdown, maybe also factor in
| the possible economic downturns. The government did a not-so-good
| job convincing people that doing a lockdown is indeed better than
| the alternative - "We ran the numbers, it seems like doing a
| lockdown at this stage is beneficial" sounds better than doing a
| lockdown just for the sake of it.
|
| And: limiting information to people doesn't help boost
| confidence.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I mean, any crunching of the numbers shows that China has
| effectively averted 3 million dead of their own population due
| to covid - assuming equal quality of care with the US.
|
| I generally attribute that to the lockdowns, do people have
| another explanation?
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>I generally attribute that to the lockdowns, do people have
| another explanation?
|
| Yea, they lie - do you have any evidence that China will not
| try and cover up any stories that make them look bad?
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| Naomi Wu writes on this.[1]
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/search?q=realsexycyborg&src=typed_query
| partido3619463 wrote:
| Given the other stories posted on this site (universally claiming
| lockdowns were pointless and no medical reason for them), makes
| me question whether these stories are representative.
| Retric wrote:
| Plenty of studies showed lockdowns worked. The long term impact
| on COVID in vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations has eroded
| how deadly people perceive COVID. Estimates vary especially
| around secondary effects like hospitals being overcrowded, but
| cumulatively lockdowns in the US saved in the low millions of
| lives.
|
| "The study found that from March through August 2020,
| implementing widespread lockdowns and other mitigation in the
| United States potentially saved more lives (866,350 to
| 1,711,150) than the number of lives potentially lost (57,922 to
| 245,055) that were attributable to the economic downturn."
|
| However, don't take my or anyone else's word for it. The
| research is publicly available if you go looking.
| swsieber wrote:
| I think we need to distinguish between government imposed
| lockdown and measure that people take on their own. The study
| you cited [0][1] assumed that people wouldn't do anything in
| lieu of a government imposed lockdown, which is patently
| false.
|
| > We attributed all COVID-19 lives saved (relative to the
| unmitigated counterfactual) to the public health measures
| (lockdowns, social distancing recommendations, masking
| recommendations), even though some voluntary behavioral
| modifications (e.g., limiting social contacts, trips to the
| store, or non-essential travel outside the state) would
| likely have taken place among the public even in the absence
| of these government interventions.
|
| I think the most interesting studies are those that try to
| figure out the effectiveness of government intervention based
| on the timing of the lockdown. IIRC (big if), the timing of
| government intervention didn't matter much indicating that
| because of self imposed behavioral changes were about as
| effective as government intervention (or that people ignored
| government imposed lock-downs, ha ha). But take that with a
| big grain of salt.
|
| [0] https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/lockdowns-during-early-
| pandemic-...
|
| [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jour
| nal...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I don't think anyone questions the effectiveness when we
| literally didn't know how Covid spread or how to treat it and
| our hospitals were getting overwhelmed.
|
| The question is if they're a useful endgame tool, after we
| have testing and treatments and vaccines. Absent the
| authoritarian measures China is deploying, the answer appears
| to be no: enough people skirt the rules to permit community
| spread.
| aaa_aaa wrote:
| johnny22 wrote:
| of course lockdowns would be terrible. Who's arguing that
| they wouldn't be? Few of the supporters of lockdown would
| argue otherwise.
|
| You can of course debate whether they were worth the cost,
| but if so, be explicit about it.
| daenz wrote:
| >worth the cost
|
| It depends on how you value life and death. On one end of
| the spectrum, there are some people who think we should
| stop everything if it prevents a single death. On the
| other end, people who think they should be allowed to do
| whatever they want even if it clearly endangers others.
|
| I don't think it's a question that the former extreme won
| out in _most places_ wrt covid response.
|
| The hard truth is that we have to put a price tag on life
| and death, because no matter what we do, it's going to
| contribute to someone's death. It's not a popular answer,
| but it's the only pragmatic one.
| andybak wrote:
| > I don't think it's a question that the former extreme
| won out in most places wrt covid response.
|
| My perception is rather different. Where are you speaking
| from, geographically?
| daenz wrote:
| USA, PNW specifically.
| wonnage wrote:
| It's frustrating when anti-lockdown folks don't differentiate
| between lockdown _now_ , when the disease is basically
| endemic and vaccines make COVID a non-issue for healthy/abled
| individuals, vs. in March 2020 when there was no vaccine, a
| mask shortage, a ventilator shortage, no consensus on
| transmission (the whole aerosol vs droplets shit), and just
| general pandemonium.
| watwut wrote:
| HN has clear bias in that regards. People here want lockdowns
| and masks to not work.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| They don't work, it's been politicized.
| moistly wrote:
| You've completely forgotten the pre-lockdown disaster in
| Italy, haven't you? Did you sleep through NYC's early days,
| when so many were dying that they had to bring in
| refrigerated trucks for the corpses? "They don't work" is
| simply an unfathomably _stupid_ thing to say.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| They're just Unfilter listeners. ;p
| version_five wrote:
| I just want to point out that I have the exact opposite
| perception, that the majority viewpoint on HN is very pro-
| authoritarian measures (though I think whether they work or
| not is immaterial, its a silly side discussion to avoid
| talking about whether a government should be able to impose
| them or not)
|
| Anyway, I think the way you and I perceive HN is shaped by
| our initial bias. Knowing the "reality" is a lot tougher
| munk-a wrote:
| I think it's a bit disingenuous to read "People here want
| lockdowns and masks to not work" and instantly paint it as
| being in favor of "pro-authoritarian" measures. I
| personally value individual freedoms but not at a level
| that erodes the individual freedoms of others. I prefer the
| freedom to not be murdered to the freedom to murder and
| I'll gladly accept the freedom to not get sick in exchange
| on some limits on what restaurants I can go to - that
| doesn't mean I'm on board with everything Stalin ever said.
|
| We always live in the grey zone - there aren't absolute
| good actions we can take in the world so every choice needs
| to be a balnce.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| hedgehog wrote:
| While China's approach is heavy-handed it also has saved a lot of
| lives, even assuming some fudging of the data their death rate is
| the lowest of any large country. Countries like Japan and
| Thailand have managed to avert nearly as much death as China with
| very different approaches so there's a good argument that there
| are good alternatives. Countries like Sweden, England, or
| especially the US have done so much worse that they probably
| shouldn't be trying to give anyone any advice on the topic.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| elfgkujgdfljkh wrote:
| rjbwork wrote:
| Unfortunately it is difficult to trust anything coming out of
| the Chinese regime, especially if it has the potential to make
| them look bad.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| It would also be very difficult to cover up the scale of
| sickness / death if COVID had run as as it has elsewhere.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Exactly. Since the original event China has responded to
| Covid with aggressive ring-fencing. That can't be hidden--
| while there is room to fudge the numbers a little bit there
| could not have been a massive cover-up.
|
| Also, what we have been seeing for the last weeks should
| make it obvious China wasn't hiding it--because we are
| seeing how China responds when it is there.
|
| Unfortunately, China is stuck in zero-Covid mode when they
| aren't able to actually accomplish that against the
| infectiveness of Omicron. It's like the cartoon character
| flailing trying to grab something while they've already run
| off the cliff--except they're killing people in the
| process.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Omicron does seem to be more contagious, but given that
| other regions of China have successfully contained it,
| not so much more contagious that strict lockdown won't
| work. It appears that the Shanghai 'disaster' has been
| caused by the typical combination of complacency and
| attempts to balance with business as usual.
| lkbm wrote:
| I don't really trust China's numbers, but I'll agree that
| they've been much better than the US'. That said, while the
| Zero COVID policy was generally good and successful until
| recently, it no longer appears to be working, and efforts
| to continue it are increasingly harmful.
|
| If they're using the time to rapidly address their
| bafflingly low vaccination rates, then maybe it will prove
| worthwhile, but otherwise I don't see how it would be at
| this point. ("Baffling" because I understand why the US
| isn't more forceful in pushing the vaccine, but don't
| understand why China hasn't pushed their own rates to near
| 100%.)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Mandating vaccination and getting it to 100% would
| probably reveal their own vaccine isn't as good as the
| mRNA ones at preventing hospitalization and death.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| China tried to actively cover up the infection in Wuhan. News
| got out, doctors posted on social media, video on Reddit
| showed people dying in the streets.
|
| China's great at suppressing protests, but informationally
| they're still porous. If millions of Chinese were dying of
| COVID, we'd know it. If suppressing information about deaths
| worked as well as you're asserting, they wouldn't have to
| publicly lock down Shanghai, either.
| Cookingboy wrote:
| >China tried to actively cover up the infection in Wuhan.
| News got out, doctors posted on social media
|
| A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid timeline
| showed that to be false.
|
| >video on Reddit showed people dying in the streets.
|
| That was literally just a drunk guy falling on street.
| Covid doesn't just make people drop dead while walking on
| the street lol. America suffered a million Covid deaths and
| we have _zero_ videos of people just drop dead on the
| street from it.
|
| But I agree with you, you can't cover up an actual pandemic
| in a country with hundreds of thousands of foreigners
| living and working there.
| watwut wrote:
| > A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid
| timeline showed that to be false.
|
| It does not?
| Cookingboy wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pa
| nde...
|
| Can you point me toward where they tried to hide the
| outbreak?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_
| Chi...
|
| > In a March 2020 interview, Ai Fen, the director of
| Wuhan Central Hospital's emergency department, stated in
| an interview that "she was told by superiors ... that
| Wuhan's health commission had issued a directive that
| medical workers were not to disclose anything about the
| virus, or the disease it caused, to avoid sparking a
| panic.
|
| > In the early stages of the outbreak, the Chinese
| National Health Commission stated it had no "clear
| evidence" of human-to-human transmissions. However, at
| this time the high prevalence of human-to-human
| transmission was evident to doctors and other health
| workers, but they were forbidden to express their
| concerns in public.
| Cookingboy wrote:
| Thanks, this is a good article that backed up one of the
| quotes: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55756452
|
| I appreciate you bringing new info to my eyes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid
| timeline showed that to be false.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
|
| "Rumors of a deadly SARS outbreak subsequently spread on
| Chinese social media platforms; Wuhan police summoned and
| admonished him on 3 January for "making false comments on
| the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak.""
|
| > That was literally just a drunk guy falling on street.
| Covid doesn't just make people drop dead while walking on
| the street lol.
|
| Sure.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/a-man-lies-
| dea...
|
| There were a lot of these at the time:
| https://www.ibtimes.sg/china-virus-chilling-videos-wuhan-
| sho...
|
| One of the defining early characteristics of COVID was
| shockingly low blood oxygen levels without other symptoms
| until you pass out. (Asymptomatic hypoxia:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062941/)
|
| Reddit's what got me to stock up a bit in February, which
| put me in a good position when shelves got empty in
| March.
|
| > America suffered a million Covid deaths and we have
| zero videos of people just drop dead on the street from
| it.
|
| We benefited from knowing about the virus by the time it
| hit here in any significant amount. (We definitely had a
| few: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/us/woman-dies-of-
| covid-on-pla...) Wuhan in January 2020 didn't know mild
| cold symptoms could turn rapidly into hypoxia and walking
| pneumonia.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| I wouldn't even call what happened with Li Wenliang a
| coverup. When someone makes a tremendous claim the usual
| response is to figure they're wrong--it's just in China
| that also resulted in an official visit telling him to
| quit scaremongering.
|
| It didn't take long for Beijing to realize he was right,
| admit the disease was real and reverse the wrist-slap the
| guy originally got.
|
| I do agree that Covid can cause people to collapse--it's
| not out of the blue but they don't realize how ill they
| are.
| Cookingboy wrote:
| >Wuhan police summoned and admonished him on 3 January
|
| And? China notified WHO and US CDC about the new virus at
| the end of December: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeli
| ne_of_the_COVID-19_pande...
|
| >"making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed
| SARS outbreak.""
|
| And he was making false comment. He was an eye doctor and
| he was telling people in his WeChat group that the
| original SARS came back.
|
| >Sure.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/a-man-lies-
| dea...
|
| Did you not read that article?
|
| "AFP could not determine how the man, who appeared to be
| aged in his 60s, had died."
|
| The guy literally had a shopping bag in his hand. Wuhan
| is a city of 10 million people, how many do you think
| dies from stroke or heart attacks each day?
|
| Or it could be Covid, in which the only known case of
| making people drop dead while on a shopping trip is
| somehow captured by this reporter.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| >> China tried to actively cover up the infection in
| Wuhan. News got out, doctors posted on social media
|
| > A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid
| timeline showed that to be false.
|
| Link to where it shows that to be false? Wikipedia
| leaving out a detail in a summary is not falsifying
| evidence.
|
| Also: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/technology/china-
| coronavirus-censorship.amp.html
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Covid doesn't just make people drop dead while walking
| on the street lol. America suffered a million Covid
| deaths and we have zero videos of people just drop dead
| on the street from it."
|
| Falling down _unconscious_ isn 't the same as dropping
| _dead_. And mere bystanders cannot always tell the
| difference at first sight.
|
| We had a case of a woman collapsing in the street in
| Brno, Czech Republic, confirmed by the rescuers who
| picked her up and drove her to the nearest hospital. Low
| oxygenation of blood can make you pass out, and Covid
| pneumonia can cause your blood oxygen to drop to
| dangerously low levels.
| bigcat123 wrote:
| jacktribe wrote:
| I've been trying to understand CCP's reasoning for these
| draconian measures. Even if you haven't seen the Twitter videos
| showing bags of live cats and dogs being being beaten to death
| with sticks, the children separated from their parents, the
| alarms on the doors, the economic numbers, you can tell that this
| does't make any sense.
|
| Some theories:
|
| - Strip people of absolutely all rights, make them feel helpless.
| Later gradually restore some rights so that they feel like
| they've gained freedoms, but not all.
|
| - Keep very low COVID numbers on paper, say the west is unsafe
| and ban travel, preventing the outflow of money from China to the
| west.
|
| - Crush the economy and nationalize private companies even
| further than they are now. Perhaps even nationalize foreign
| companies that operate in China (see Russia).
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| Or by Occam's razor, I would say the goverment simply screws up
| (so badly) at their top-down approach at this stage.
| wonnage wrote:
| The problem is that the reasoning at the top isn't anything
| near what the drones implementing said policy at the bottom are
| doing.
|
| There's like a hundred layers of people between Xi and the
| dudes beating dogs. It's like a game of telephone where some
| medical experts speculate about animal reservoirs, and somebody
| in the mayor's circle hears about it, and next thing you know
| they're giving covid tests to chickens. It's the same incentive
| problem as the Great Leap Forward in the 50s, failure is
| punished, so if there's even a hint that letting some cats go
| free will come back to bite you, why take that risk?
|
| In some ways China's decision making is actually quite
| decentralized, in that the sheer mass of bureaucrats making
| decisions and carrying out actions is incredibly high. The
| center passes out a generalized order like "lockdown and limit
| covid spread" and leaves the implementation details to the next
| level. By the time it gets to your apartment community you're
| stuck with some uncle/auntie who spent their school years
| heckling teachers during the cultural revolution trying to make
| public health decisions.
|
| TL;DR when China does something stupid and illogical it's not
| always because there's a nefarious plan. The system is just
| broken and causing suffering for no reason.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| open-source-ux wrote:
| According to this BBC video report, more Shanghai residents are
| venting their anger and frustration by posting videos on social
| media. Such videos are normally censored by China's 'Great
| Firewall'.
|
| The BBC website states: "...the sheer volume of the clips has
| made it difficult for censors to keep up. Many are also being
| passed around in private group chats, which has made them harder
| to catch."
|
| _Shanghai lockdown: How angry netizens test China 's 'Great
| Firewall'_ (video): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-
| china-61102809
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I know this is a nit, but that is a misrepresentation of what
| the Great Firewall is (to keep things out of the country) vs.
| the internal censorship regime that domestic internet services
| are supposed to provide. In this case, it is the internal
| censorship apparatus that cannot keep up, not the great
| firewall failing from letting information in or out of the
| country.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I think the term 'Great Firewall' has become a colloquialism
| for the compute resources the CCP uses to further their
| agenda. They've used the same set of network/compute
| resources to commit cyber attacks, so thinking of the Great
| Firewall as only the filter for the outside world gives a
| false impression of how their systems work and are deployed.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| But this is not a technological thing...and it isn't CPC
| driven (rather, private companies are supposed to self
| censor inside China, via manual inspection or increasingly
| via AI). The Great Firewall specifically is package
| filtering technology installed at ISPs with out-of-china
| links. China can't use it against internal traffic because
| it would basically shut the internet down completely in the
| entire country (given its slow performance).
| jaqalopes wrote:
| I lived in Shanghai for 5 years and have many friends and
| business connects there. I would never, ever want to be seen as
| carrying water for the CCP--the day they abolished term limits
| for Xi was the day I started planning my exit.
|
| I've been following this situation for almost a month now and in
| one sense it's every bit as bad as it looks. An inadequate and
| inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhaps
| even uncaring, government. Especially galling to me as an
| American who's seen what we went through in Covid with my country
| is the claim of "zero Covid deaths" in Shanghai during the last
| few months.
|
| That said, as far as I can tell it's a very unevenly distributed
| disaster. If you have Covid and got sent to a quarantine center,
| yeah you're probably SOL. But on the other hand, my friends who
| are quarantined and didn't get it are just bored to death,
| drinking and gaming and working from home, just treading water
| until this "ends."
|
| Shanghai is nothing if not a big city. 26 million is a LOT of
| people. Your experience of life, even in the best of times,
| varies greatly by neighborhood, industry, income level, and more.
| So I guess what I'm trying to say is, definitely don't buy the
| CCP propaganda, but equally don't take the (truly grim) videos
| all over social media as representative of the whole situation.
| This crisis is unfolding on a bell curve. That's a lesson anyone,
| in any country, can take away from this, to better consider and
| critique their own government's response to future disasters.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Many calamities are unevenly distributed, so I would suppose
| Covid and lockdowns are just the same. (Even natural disasters-
| some homes are flooded, some homes are not...) the problem is
| in aggregate how much loss and suffering is acceptable.
| Especially in a case like this, arguably man made.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > But on the other hand, my friends who are quarantined and
| didn't get it are just bored to death, drinking and gaming and
| working from home, just treading water until this "ends."
|
| From what I've been hearing, the big problem for lots of people
| stuck under lockdown is simply getting groceries/food
| deliveries at all. The government isn't letting delivery people
| work, and the military response to distributing food isn't
| filling the gap (maybe if you are lucky, you'll get some pork
| and bai cai form the gov at your door). So that would suck, if
| true. I also rather guess experiences differ between richer
| districts and poorer ones.
| cryptonector wrote:
| I wonder if there were many preppers in Shanghai.
|
| I wonder if how many new preppers there are now throughout
| China.
|
| Of all the reasons people prep, "long lockdowns" was never
| one until very recent times.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Chinese tend to grocery shop daily or bi-daily for food
| they need for a day or two, they don't have space to store
| a bunch of canned goods (especially in Shanghai). They
| might have a stockpile of fangbianmian (instant noodles),
| but that's about it.
| dqpb wrote:
| > An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of
| touch, or perhaps even uncaring, government
|
| The inevitable result of centralized control.
| kharak wrote:
| That is certainly an important factor. I think it goes even
| deeper.
|
| China doesn't recognize human rights as we know them. The
| collective, represented by state interests (CCP), is above
| all. Hence any individual right can be sacrificed for the
| greater good. Aka state interests.
|
| And that's why situations like this shutdown in Shanghai can
| unfold. It's a deeply philosophical problem that China hasn't
| resolved, despite ample opportunity to learn the lesson.
| bllguo wrote:
| > It's a deeply philosophical problem that China hasn't
| resolved, despite ample opportunity to learn the lesson.
|
| What a bizarre statement. How can you simultaneously think
| it's a deep philosophical issue and also that there is an
| obvious solution?
| wonnage wrote:
| Any time we humans have tried decentralized control, we've
| found a way to turn it back into centralized control.
|
| Hell, just look at the universe. What started as a random
| distribution of gas still found ways to condense into
| literally an infinitely dense point.
|
| Any minor power imbalance in a decentralized system will be
| exploited and provide the cumulative advantage over time to
| turn it back into a centralized system.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Thank you for your take on this. My reaction is that you are of
| course right that this is not affecting everyone equally.
| Certainly the CCP is not starving out all 26 million people in
| Shanghai. But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of
| authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced or
| worse and that justice is not equally distributed.
| qiskit wrote:
| > But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of
| authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced
| or worse and that justice is not equally distributed.
|
| How is that an authoritarian government problem? You do
| realize that minority voices get silenced in every government
| and justice is nowhere equally distributed. Unless you are
| asserting the US, Canada, Australia, etc are/were
| authoritarian governments. The mindless propaganda when it
| comes to china is laughable.
| munk-a wrote:
| The degree to which voices are silenced is definitely quite
| different. Canada has recently been having a very difficult
| discussion on Native American deaths and disappearances at
| residential schools - this is a discussion that could never
| happen under the Chinese government.
|
| Yes, it's wrong to say that voices are completely silenced
| in China and completely free in Canada - but it's pretty
| disingenuous to suggest they're on equal footing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I struggle to find these sort of concerns in good faith when
| we basically killed a million of our own population with
| covid. That dwarfs the number who might starve to death in
| this lockdown.
|
| Was justice "equally distributed" there?
| kccqzy wrote:
| There are so many news reports of people dying of non-
| Covid, treatable diseases because of lockdown. Something as
| simple as not getting prescriptions filled (can't leave
| your home to get prescriptions, delivery services also shut
| down), or not being allowed to go to the hospital for
| routine procedures like dialysis. Starvation is but one way
| people die in a strict draconian lockdown. The article is
| full of harrowing stories unrelated to starvation.
|
| China has successfully used this lockdown to make sure no
| one dies _of_ Covid in Shanghai; but no one is keeping
| track of the deaths caused by lockdown.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I'll bet you that it is fewer than 3 million deaths.
| chefandy wrote:
| Yeah-- examples of centralized authority being very bad at
| some very important things doesn't automatically mean
| centralization is the the problem, that those defects
| aren't present or worse in power structures that form in
| less centralized systems, or that the drawbacks of
| decentralization don't outweigh the benefits. Doesn't mean
| the opposite, either. Politicization has a way making
| complex problems appear to have simple solutions.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| "We" didn't kill anybody, they died of a highly
| transmissible and novel disease for which there was no cure
| and no vaccine for over a year. There was no possible way
| that death could have been completely averted. Yes, there
| were policy choices that could have been made differently,
| that would have potentially slowed the spread. We
| implemented many, decided not to implement others, and had
| a difficult time enforcing the policies we did enact. But
| using the language of murder when talking this, and arguing
| using an implied base rate of zero, is hardly good faith.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > There was no possible way that death could have been
| averted.
|
| Respectfully, I disagree. If there was no possible way to
| avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of
| equivalent deaths?
|
| The action/omission distinction is for judging who
| started a fight in a schoolyard, not for judging the
| actions of nation-states.
| rrsmtz wrote:
| China and the USA are vastly different countries, in
| almost every single way that modern states can be
| different. You're comparing apples to oranges.
| afiori wrote:
| > If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China
| avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths?
|
| By being ready to lock people in their homes and
| preventing them to even go buy groceries.
|
| Are you proposing that western countries should/could do
| this?
|
| We could also ban all sugar/sweeteners, alcohol, driving
| and sitting still for more than 6 hours a day; this would
| also save a lot of lives.
|
| You can tune a Paperclip Optimizer to any single good
| metric, it does not mean that it is a good idea.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| I'm not taking a side on whether or not deaths could've
| been averted but I would be very skeptical of data coming
| out of China.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| So the argument is that the lockdown secretly failed, but
| we somehow missed in all antibody tests from travelers in
| China the widespread covid infection and we also missed
| all the 3 million deaths?
|
| Data from China is how we even got the sequence for the
| virus in the first place.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| You are taking an extreme "trust everything or trust
| nothing" position that I didn't make. I'm saying China
| has in the past spread misinformation about covid even
| denying that it even existed when in the first place.
| People should be skeptical about data from China
| regarding the situation. I'm not saying disregard it just
| give it extra consideration before accepting it as
| gospel.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I am not accepting it as gospel, just saying that it is
| exceedingly likely that china did avert 3 million deaths.
| The only counter suggestion is that they somehow managed
| to cover up these 3 million deaths and the associated
| covid spread.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Chinese local authorities will lose their jobs if they
| report any COVID deaths to the central government, so
| they don't report any (and why the central government was
| slow to be notified of the first Wuhan COVID cases in the
| first place). It isn't very complicated, that's how an
| authoritarian government works. They might actually be
| doing a good job, but the net effect to those of us on
| the outside is the same as if they were doing a bad job.
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't think that's a very productive line of reasoning
| at this point. It's extremely likely that Chinese COVID
| deaths have been fudged, but that fudging still places
| them pretty close to the top of the list in terms of
| proportional COVID deaths. China isn't able to cover up
| two large metropolises disappearing off the face of the
| earth - I'm almost certain there is a fair amount of
| statistical fudging but I think we can be confident that
| the numbers are in the same ballpark.
|
| So, at the end of the day, I think the rest of the
| discussion remains unchanged.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent
| deaths?
|
| Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is it
| more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter;
| they don't have a good track record.
| stone-monkey wrote:
| It should be obvious at this point that China doesn't
| have hundreds of thousands or millions of covid deaths
| the same way other non lockdown countries do. We can
| definitively say that based on this specific outbreak in
| Shanghai - There's no possible way the Chinese government
| could have hid outbreaks at this scale for two years now.
| That doesn't mean their approach didn't have problems.
| But whenever I see comments like this about them hiding
| the true covid numbers it seems in in bad faith,
| especially because we're looking at direct evidence in
| this specific case that it wouldn't have been possible
| for the government to do so. Are the Wuhan numbers
| fudged? Probably. But it's pretty clear based on the
| failure of zero covid to contain omicron that it more or
| less worked well to stop the spread against Covid zero,
| alpha, and delta.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Do you really believe they 'averted 'the deaths? or is
| it more likely they hid the truth. I vote for the latter;
| they don't have a good track record.
|
| They would not be able to hide infection on the level
| that the US has had it - antibody tests from travelers
| from China would show it trivially, social media would
| show it.
|
| The idea that China has secretly had 3 million covid
| deaths and widespread infection without anybody realizing
| is a conspiracy theory.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| It's hard to give China credit for anything on Covid when
| their decisions led to it being a world wide pandemic in
| the first place.
|
| You're saying the firefighters (WHO and the Western
| response) didn't do enough to put out the fire burning
| down their houses (western countries), while
| simultaneously praising the neighbor (China) who found
| the fire, lied about the fire, "disappeared" people who
| attempted to report the fire, delayed response to the
| fire, spread the fire, but FINALLY at the eleventh hour
| made sure their own house didn't burn from the fire.
| east2west wrote:
| Anyone can look up The Great Leap Forward and official
| coverup of ZhengZhou flood death this year to know that
| CCP covering up death is NOT a conspiracy theory.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| That's covering up 300 deaths, not 3 million.
|
| As I've said, it would be obvious from antibody tests if
| they did this.
|
| Not going to keep responding, you are letting your
| feelings about China's government cloud your judgement on
| the facts.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Well, the US does top the world in obesity and other
| comorbidities that increase frailty.
|
| I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese
| has overall better immune system function. On a related
| note I've just learned that one of the reasons they are
| more affected by the lockdowns is that the culture much
| prefers fresh food.
|
| And no, there was no way most or any Western nations
| could have managed lockdowns of the sort that would have
| the necessary impact (of which I'm highly doubtful), for
| numerous reasons. The consequences of the so called
| "soft" approach on lockdowns are and are going to be
| massive anyway. And probably for naught.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > I'm pretty confident in stating that the average
| Chinese has overall better immune system function.
|
| I would disagree with this, especially in Southern China
| in the winter. The lack of indoor heating has a huge
| impact on your immune system, to the point that it is
| extremely easy to get sick.
|
| There is a reason a bunch of old people die in Hong Kong
| whenever the temperature drops below 5C, which is much
| more developed compared to the rest of southern china.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Yes I'm sure there are other factors, including pollution
| etc. But wrt. to Covid the main risk factors seems to be
| blood sugar / blood pressure problems. Possibly because
| these are most correlated with immunosupression, various
| deficiencies, possibly immunosupressive medication (to
| mitigate chronic inflammatory conditions) etc.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Actually, the main risk factor seems to be age, which is
| also why Hong Kong was hit so hard. Otherwise, I don't
| think we can say much about the difference between
| Chinese and western comorbidity risk factors...not
| without data anyone we are not likely to get access to.
| lambdaba wrote:
| I think that is because age is often correlated with
| those ailments? Wasn't there a stat about a vast majority
| having 4 or more comorbidities?
|
| I agree, we won't have data, but my gut feeling, having
| been raised in this kind of environment, is most people
| are basically poisoned by such lifestyle factors. 88%
| percent of Americans have a metabolic dysfunction. Again,
| I agree we couldn't prove this in a satisfactory
| scientific way, just what my eyes are seeing.
| east2west wrote:
| This is the standard line from 50-cents (Wu Mao ). US and
| CCP counts deaths differently. One needs only to compare
| flu statistics to know they are not comparable.
|
| US counts anyone with virus at the time of death while CCP
| releases no data and on rare occasion they publish
| statistics, the numbers are several orders of magnitude
| lower than US numbers.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I am not using any standard lines, I am an internet
| commentator from the US.
|
| If China were lying about it's numbers, it would be
| obvious from antibody tests of people traveling from
| China. It is clear that they are not undercounting deaths
| by millions.
| ccbccccbbcccbb wrote:
| > an out of touch, or perhaps even uncaring, government
|
| Perhaps even actively malicious, with "perhaps" converging to
| "definitely".
| godelski wrote:
| > That said, as far as I can tell it's a very unevenly
| distributed disaster.
|
| I think this is one of the big issues with covid overall,
| especially how we discuss it over the internet. It is very
| possible that there is a person where everyone they know around
| them got covid as well as another person may only know one or
| two people who got it and only had mild cases. There's an
| extremely disproportionate distribution when it comes to things
| like viruses but I think our natural tendency is to believe
| things are more uniform.
|
| Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just
| by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible. Even
| zero deaths. I understand the want to minimize (especially in
| an area with high population densities), but zero is an
| impossible number.
| tacocataco wrote:
| I was under the impression that there was a animal reservoir
| of covid out in the wild. Is that not true?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy.
| Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems
| impossible.
|
| It worked for original SARS, no?
| munk-a wrote:
| I think if the world had been on board with a zero covid
| policy we probably would've weathered the pandemic much
| better - but convincing western nations to adopt that
| approach and their populace to actually accept the approach
| would have been a job and a half. My feeling through most
| of COVID (as someone in BC, Canada) is that the government
| is trying their best to minimize the amount people leave
| their homes while avoiding significant open protests.
| People marching in the streets is the last thing you want
| during a pandemic, it will cause an absolutely explosive
| number of cases - especially if those marches are done by
| people refusing vaccination and not using masks. And, to be
| honest, what's a government going to do - if Bonnie Henry
| declared a full lock down and tried to patrol the streets
| the number of law enforcement officers would be stretched
| to a breaking point - if people in a Condo building decided
| to storm the street they'd easily overwhelm the police...
|
| So I think the zero covid policy is a decent idea if you
| can contain the disease before it spreads overseas but that
| a lot of western democracies are no where near well
| positioned enough to follow suit and, if you are the only
| country with a zero covid policy then there's going to be a
| really big tidalwave if the virus stays alive long enough
| to mutate and spread back into your country.
|
| It sucks but this thing was global before lock downs were
| taken seriously so focusing bureaucracy on containment
| instead of preparing for the eventual return wave seems
| unwise.
| version_five wrote:
| Whether or not global lockdowns would have worked, I
| prefer a world in which you can get covid to one in which
| the government can confine you to your house. You're
| welcome to move to China if you prefer the latter
| approach - or just confine yourself to your house
| yourself...
| munk-a wrote:
| In fact I have mostly confined myself to my house. I can
| work remotely and we have an income sufficient to rely on
| instacart and delivery for food. We go out for walks in
| the neighborhood but we avoid going in stores or
| restaurants except on rare occasions. We've taken one
| vacation (during the lull before omicron became a thing)
| and we'll try and take another vacation this summer but,
| otherwise, we're trying our best to contribute to keeping
| everyone around us, our friends and relatives, safe. That
| doesn't mean I don't want it to end though.
|
| I don't think your comments about moving to China are at
| all productive to the dialog though.
| version_five wrote:
| > I don't think your comments about moving to China are
| at all productive to the dialog though.
|
| I want to address this. Why is it not productive? One
| great thing about the world is that we have different
| jurisdictions that value different things, so they can
| compete and like minded people can potentially get
| together somewhere and live as they want. Many people are
| moving to Florida e.g. because of its approach to covid.
| If you want the opposite, and your initial comment I
| understood to basically be support for China's approach,
| there are jurisdictions you can go to that provide that.
| It's better for you because your priorities are
| supported, and it's better for people in other places
| with different priorities. What's not productive is
| trying to lobby the government to force everyone around
| you to behave the way you want them to.
|
| Seriously, if you support China's approach, and value it
| more than what you're getting in Canada, move to China,
| don't try and make Canada any more authoritarian
| munk-a wrote:
| Oh, mostly because I'm a Canadian and the Canadian
| response to everything is dictated by its citizens
| determining what the government does in reaction to
| various stimuli. I'm not going to execute a violent coup
| to overthrow the Canadian government to force my personal
| ideals on everyone else but me expressing my ideals and
| trying, within the system, to tilt the responses to what
| works for me is, in fact, the Canadian government working
| as designed.
|
| Canada is an abstract concept - just like Florida - it
| isn't authoritarian or freedom loving as an inherent
| property, it is responding to the will of its populace. I
| personally think my ideals would help Canada be a safer
| and more prosperous country, so why should I say "screw
| all these guys" and jump ship... I'd prefer to stay and
| try and make my neighbors safer. That said, I'm actually
| a US-Canadian dualie so it is an adopted home.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You already live in a world where the government can
| confine you to your house. They likely already did.
| bandushrew wrote:
| You have lived in a world in which the government can
| confine you to your house your entire life.
|
| Why is it only recently you have noticed?
| godelski wrote:
| Not really. There's also a lot of differences, like SARS
| didn't escape to be a global pandemic. I'd say that's a big
| difference. At this point zero covid is like trying to
| create a zero flu policy. That's very different from a zero
| measles policy.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why? It's worked for them for a few years now and they
| have successfully mitigated what would have been millions
| of deaths.
|
| Your claim that it doesn't work because of the "nature of
| viruses" seems belied by the facts on the ground.
| batch12 wrote:
| I don't think it has worked until they have zero covid.
| Maybe a silver lining from this will be people resisting
| anything happening they perceive as mistreatment from
| their government.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Okay, I think that avoiding 3 million deaths might be
| worthy of some level of praise but agree to disagree :)
| jtc331 wrote:
| You are assuming their reported death numbers are
| accurate. You are also assuming the deaths caused by
| these policies won't end up exceeding that number.
|
| Neither assumptions are backed by evidence.
| munk-a wrote:
| That's exactly my concern too - right now China's
| response looks great on the world stage... but the
| pandemic isn't over yet and China rolled out an extremely
| ineffective vaccine that leaves their population quite
| vulnerable.
|
| If this disaster spreads to other Chinese metropolitan
| areas it would be devastating.
| sharken wrote:
| Exactly this, the Chinese developed vaccine Sinovac is
| the primary cause of the poor COVID results.
|
| It simply doesn't do the job well enough, but good luck
| trying to make the Chinese leader choose an American
| product.
|
| So the stubbornness of the regime is at fault, but with
| no limits on terms anymore, i see only bad things for the
| future of China.
| munk-a wrote:
| If people weren't so resistant to government policy we
| might have seen something close to zero covid rolled out
| in the US and, instead of the US being the locus of
| disease for a number of years, we might have actually
| ended this pandemic with a decisive but painful
| quarantine - instead we'll continue in this state of
| psuedo quarantine for who knows how many years... how we
| comport ourselves today might just be the new social
| standard.
|
| China's decision to continue on the zero-covid route
| seems extremely unwise once it was clear that breakouts
| were happening across the globe and containment was no
| longer an option - but initially pursuing containment was
| an extremely wise policy.
| [deleted]
| QuikAccount wrote:
| 2 big differences SARS didn't explode all over the globe
| and if you got SARS your fate was decided very quickly.
| Covid can be very mild or even asymptomatic making it easy
| to miss.
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Not to mention spread!
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| One of my family member is living Shanghai who has not taken any
| vaccine yet due to contraindications. Not to mention that there
| are millions of elders living in China who are not suitable for
| taking vaccine.
|
| I am very concerned if an authoritative gov aiming for "zero-
| covid" would push and mandate every citizen to be vaccinated. But
| I saw all these comments bashing gov on "why lockdown", "why not
| just take vax", "why not herd immunity" without deeping into
| questions - which is not much different from "Let them eat cake".
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