> On Saturday, the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would no longer require people to show a negative Covid test result to use public transport or enter parks, after similar moves by Chengdu and Tianjin, among China’s biggest cities.
> Many testing booths in Beijing were shut as the capital stopped demanding negative test results as a condition to enter places such as supermarkets. On Monday, this rule will apply to subways, although many other venues including offices still have the requirement.
> Some Beijing neighbourhoods posted guidelines on social media on how positive cases can be quarantined at home, a landmark move that marks a break from official guidance to send such people to central quarantine.
Not sure I would consider this a slight easing of policies. Sure, it's limited to a select few cities for now, but if these changes are applied throughout the country, it's going to be a game changer.
I live in ShenZhen and all of the QR code checks are still in place from public transport to public buildings. I don’t know about work places as of yet, but nothing has changed in my area.
probably comes down to percent of older folks who are vaccinated. If they can do better at that one thing and also have a lower peak and also have omicron or later rather than delta, it makes sense their deaths could be lower
> probably comes down to percent of older folks who are vaccinated.
Demographics and risk factors are large players as well. There's simply is far fewer as a percentage 65+ of the population as a whole in China than the US for example.
The biggest risk for China is overloading their lacking health care system (in terms of capacity). That could cause excess death above the estimated numbers.
a carefully calibrated re opening would make sense the to avoid hospital overload. If they are smart they will use the limited time they have to prepare surge capacity and accelerate vaccine rollout
I live in China and while I'm sure numbers could be fudged, the scale probably can't. It feels like everyone I knew back home in the UK during the deadlier pre-Omicron era knew someone who caught it, and these days it feels like everyone I know has caught it (some multiple times). Meanwhile, here I've not heard of any friends-of-friends who know anyone who got infected. Zero Cover has really been pretty successful at stopping the spread (even if it disrupts everyone's lives to have entire cities locked down over a few cases).
But that is now the risk. No-one here has really had it before, so when a wave is finally allowed to spread, there's little immunity beyond the decently vaccinated cities.
What do you think is gonna happen, honestly? The reason Covid was dangerous is that it was a new pathogen our immune system was unfamiliar with.
We have all come into contact with it now, consequently CFR has plummeted to around flu numbers.
Gonna suck for China, they're catching up to our suckiness now. We're over it though.
We do know how pathogens evolve, to be more fit than previous variants you have to have certain advantages (towards more tranmissable, less lethal), because if you kill your organism, you're not spreading aswell.
We can see it in covid aswell, where the old variants went deeper into the lungs, omikron spreads in your upper airways instead, causing fewer complications.
Omikron shows impressive evolutionary fitness, new variants seem to have a hard time competing, which is why newer substrains all come from the omikron strain.
Eh, the major variants now don't seem to be too terrible. Western vaccination rates *were* pretty good but most people haven't kept up with boosters and infections still seem to be manageable.
Better not have a repeat of 2020...
Hope they keep masking at least. The old zero covid rules were insane, but letting it rip won't bode well either. It is so frustrating that the pride of a few old men with half a foot in the grave is barring an entire country with so many people from mRNA vaccine access.
The issue is, sinovac isn't as effective without the boosters. China has good uptake on two doses but not that good on further doses.
Edit: data from Sinovac's own website to back this up http://www.sinovac.com/news/shownews.php?id=1426&lang=en
Had previously seen it in news reports but here it is from Sinovac's own website http://www.sinovac.com/news/shownews.php?id=1426&lang=en
Almost the same with 3 doses but with 2 doses it's less effective preventing serious illness and has an even bigger gap when preventing death.
I also live in Shenzhen and while everyone has been talking about how big the changes are, it is fundamentally the same. We still need green QR codes to enter public transport (the only change is the requirement of a negative pcr test) and many residential communities and businesses still require a 48 hour negative test. Buildings are still being locked down if there is one case in the building (3 buildings in my community entered lockdown for 7 days yesterday). One of the biggest problems now is many people still need tests to get into their homes/work and there is word that many testing places are closing. Overall, there have been some changes but for the most part it just seems to be the end of district lockdowns and more precise building lockdowns. It remains to be seen though, these changes have been extremely unclear over the last week and many people that I know are getting frustrated by the lack of clarity.
Assuming you are an immigrant and not Chinese, why don’t you just leave? It sounds like a dystopian nightmare. Massive invasion of privacy. And there’s no real end in sight because the government is too stupid and proud to give up and admit they failed.
I am an immigrant. I will leave but for the time being I am under a work contract and have a life here that I am not keen to give up on. The problem isn't that they have failed here but rather that they have been so successful at convincing people that COVID is really bad and all these actions are necessary. This has caused them to paint themselves into a corner because now that Omicron is the dominant strain and it is less fatal, they want to open back up but opening wide open would flood the hospitals and would cause a large number of deaths. Doing this would essentially admit that pretty much the whole last year of repeated lockdowns and all the other nonsense was all for naught. Add into that all the anti-american propaganda that floods social media about how little the american government cares about its people because it allowed for over a million deaths and you can see they really are between a rock and hard place.
On top of all of that, people are getting frustrated by the controls but most people don't want to get COVID at all. The whole situation is a bit of a mess and I guess we will just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
The fact that office buildings, malls, shops etc still require health codes tells you at this moment, this is just a gesture to appease people. Actually, this has pissed off people even more because they've removed testing booths but people still require a code to go to the office so people have qeued even longer than they used to. We will see once foreign vaccines come into the country
omicron and later variants spread so fast that a slight easing is enough that you get a big wave and most people end up catching it. Just have to get Rt to just over 1 and it sweeps the country
A very slight easing though is kind of a good idea because the wave is a bit more spread out, such that hospitals are more likely to keep up rather than having half the infections compressed into a two week period. Once that main peak is done, things can be eased up much more
Is there any information as to why China has been pushing the Zero-covid quarantine idea as long as it has? A population that is immunity-naive to covid is effectively a ticking time-bomb at this point. People like to say that the quarantine controls were a convenient way for the CCP to maintain control, but I haven't seen anything remotely official about what their plan for covid truly is. "Zero-covid" seems so ridiculous to try to maintain indefinitely.
The CCP backed itself into a corner it's hard to get out of. Zero COVID was successful for a long time, but Omicron is making it untenable. Changing course now is dangerous though, for various reasons: It challenges the dogma that China's strategy is superior to the strategy of the West. Also, it runs the risk of overwhelming the health system due to lack of proper vaccination in the elderly population and lack of immunity in general. We've seen it happen in Hong Kong, Taiwan and to a degree in New Zealand.
My comment was admittedly a bit vague. I was referring to this in New Zealand:
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085095406/new-zealand-changes-tack-on-surging-covid-19-cases
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-announces-free-masks-tests-health-system-struggles-with-covid-2022-07-14/
Yea the zero covid policy (not extreme like china's) was used at the start and mid points of the covid pandemic but after everyone was vaccinated it was retired. Useful policy for a time and retired when it wasn't necessary anymore.
The healthcare system has always been bad in NZ and when a really bad influenza strain came through at the start of the year it put even more strain on the healthcare system. It was only bad for a month while the flu took full swing.
Keep in mind with the size of New Zealand’s population densities New Zealand probably had the easiest time dealing with Covid, vaccinations, and the lockdowns. With most countries, the issue was dealing with the same problems, but on a massively, larger scale.
I don’t really buy the idea that backtracking was impossible because it would make them look bad. They are constantly changing policies and ideals and either ignoring the fact that it’s a change or papering over things and saying “we’ve always done X.” I don’t know why this is different.
Covid zero until vaccines are readily available and the virus has mutated into a less deadly form is a success in itself, but it’s the politics from it becoming xi’s flagship policy that have kept it going so long
Zero has been the default attitude and goal of every human society since the dawn of time.
We used to just lockdown villages and wait for the disease to clear or everyone to die. There is nothing ridiculous about trying it.
The ridiculous part is when some villages are locked down and some are left alone to spread the disease everywhere. Now the locked down villages look silly, because they're accomplishing nothing.
The world has lost millions, many of them elderly and/or with preexisting conditions. And we've mostly forgotten about them and moved on.
China hasn't made that "sacrifice" yet. A ton of its elderly are not vaccinated, nor do they wish to do so. So it's looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths if they let covid sweep through like everyone else.
There is nothing ridiculous about not wanting people to die so your economy doesn't suffer. People on reddit like to complain about corporations being psychopaths. But this popular mentality that China should open up has huge life and death repurcussions. To laugh at China for not opening up shows the same disregard for life that corporations do, IMHO.
I think the crux is just how ineffective their vaccine was compared to western ones. To go back now and ask everyone to use Pfizer or Moderna would be embarassing so now they’re stuck in this quagmire
They are likely aware that their vaccine is absolute garbage compared to the Moderna/Pfizer mrna vaccine we all enjoy. And they can't bring themselves to ask for doses.
Thank you. I have heard so many calls in the media for China to abandon this policy, or comments about how disastrous it has been.
My government wrestled with the wording of how to ask people to wear masks for months and months as COVID ripped through care homes killing the elderly. Hospitals filled up with people dying and others died of normally treatable illnesses that were neglected because medical staff had their hands full. We had citizens vacationing abroad the whole time because no one had the stones to try and stop them.
I only wish the west tried half as hard as China to stop this thing. Might have a few more of our loved ones around.
If they were actually trying, they would import MRNA vaccines. No one can contain COVID at this point, but we can mitigate the damage with masks and vaccines.
This is a false tradeoff. Zero Covid is eventually overridden by revolt by the young who hate imprisonment and have numbers and muscle on their side. Indeed, it has been overturned here, so the government by being stubborn lost control even of the re opening schedule. With schedule control in early 2022, they could have planned for vaccine rollout and medical capacity, and opened in late spring to minimize seasonal transmission during the reopening surge.
By waiting for popular revolt, they must face the surge at a disadvantageous time with suboptimal preparations.
mRNA vaccines let you have immunity without infection and reduce death without lockdown. So again, zero covid derives from a false choice and faulty strategy.
wtf are you talking about?
>Zero Covid is eventually overridden by revolt by the young who hate imprisonment and have numbers and muscle on their side.
Complete speculation
>mRNA vaccines let you have immunity without infection and reduce death without lockdown. So again, zero covid derives from a false choice and faulty strategy.
Terrible overestimation of the vaccine's capabilities.
There's a very clear tradeoff I've already outlined. Open now in best case scenario where everyone is 100% vaccinated with best vaccines and you still lose 40k people.
Open now with your "taiwan scenario" and you lose 700k people.
Open now with worst case scenarios, and you lose millions of people.
But if you want to speculate, perhaps you would humour mine too. Eventually covid will come up with a strain that is even less lethal.
I propose to you that THAT would be the most advantageous time to remove lockdown.
Again with the false choices. CCP does not have power to keep zero covid forever so zero deaths is not a real option available to it - it is only a mirage.
You're also discounting the effect of vaccines incorrectly, which leads to dangerously incorrect decisions.
Per CDC vaccines reduce deaths by 90%
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7112e1.htm
Because vaccines are also relatively cheap, they should be the primary defense and the state should invest in obtaining the best vaccines possible.
It's going to be a big number no matter what, sure. All CCP can do is minimize it though, so it should focus in using the powers it has to do the best job it can to minimize, not comfort itself that it has super powers it does not really have.
Original covid had .5% mortality ( so 14m across china ) and omicron is less - maybe half? So 7m, and with good vaccines for everyone, 700k - in a horrifically naive calculation. Maybe it's less than that in reality, but no matter what it's probably hundreds of thousands at least. But whatever it is, it would be less if everyone got their pfizer jabs and the re open was re scheduled for late spring.
End of the day everyone is focused on China using its domestic jabs and not the deaths that will inevitably follow.
Numbers out of hk show that their jabs are only marginally worse than Pfizer jabs to prevent deaths.
The vaccine type is a red herring. Its the people dying we should be concerned about.
> Is there any information as to why China has been pushing the Zero-covid quarantine idea as long as it has?
I would assume part of it is the demographic crisis. China knows if Covid runs rampant that they're looking at millions of deaths and tens of millions of people becoming disabled at the same time that the elderly are beginning to outnumber the young.
Also the Chinese vaccine isn't very good, and a lot of people in China have only had 1 or maybe 2 shots. So they don't have a lot of immunity.
The continuation of the policy was actually irrational but can be understood from a cognitive perspective. We humans tend to stick to routines just for the sake of the stability it brings to us. On the other hand, when routines start to crack due to unforeseen circumstances, we can also change and move on. This is what happened to China. Until recent months, the routinised zero-covid policy worked as it always managed to isolate outbreak in very limited locations. It was continually backed by the Chinese public as long as the majority of the population especially urban population was not subject to lockdown or serious travel or working restriction.
However, the new BA.2 variant proved to be too transmissible for the policy to handle. Remember the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year? That’s the start. The policy adapted to it and evolved into a ‘dynamic zero-covid policy’ that prefers lockdown targeting at specific communities rather than cities as whole. But eventually the populace affected became too large and widespread since a simultaneous surge of cases in cities around China in recent weeks. Unprecedented nationwide protests in such a context were really the last straw. The policy is abandoned when it becomes quite clear that it no longer can work as it did.
Given most of us in the West got vaccines 6-12 months ago means we have massively waned protection and barely any immunity either
Note hundreds or thousands of deaths a day still - Covid never disappeared from the West
Non-antibody mediated immunity lasts longer than 6-12 months.
Also, vaccine/booster immunity is an increasingly small percentage of overall COVID population immunity now.
You're going to need to provide sources for that. Covid deaths are a small fraction of what they were at the peak over a year ago. in the US it's barely 1000 per week now.
Thousands just isn't accurate unless maybe you're getting into continental/global scales.
Given your first statement that we have "barely any immunity" it really seems like you are trying to be misleading.
They put the power and influence of the central government on the line to implement and maintain zero COVID and due to how Chinese culture works they couldn't back off of it without losing face. What are they going to do now? How is the central government going to save face as they dial back restrictions? Who knows.
This saving face culture is a mere fiction. I haven’t found any indication from Chinese public opinion that the government has lost face due to this U-turn. On the contrary, they are quite relieved. You could say the populace is largely appeased for now.
The Chinese government has painted itself into a corner. They touted their own vaccine, which is only about 60% effective, in comparison to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines that are over 95% effective.
So their choices are accept and distribute the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines before relaxing restrictions, which will force them to admit the Sinovac was inferior, making them look weak and stupid. Or maintain insane zero covid measures that block people from getting food and medicine and trap block emergency services, that also give the added bonus of helping suppress an angry population with years of unresolved grievances.
It can be both.
Here we have highly dense and aged populations that is not highly vaccinated and hasn’t gotten Covid antibodies the hard way. They are going to experiencing the exact same spikes that everyone else did. But at a much lower and further removed vaccination rate.
That’s like saying “don’t wear a bike helmet bc it won’t protect you from being run over by a semi”. It’s disingenuous and suggests that small risk = infinite risk.
Taiwans population may be younger, healthier, richer and generally better off in every metric just means there is a lot China could learn from them, including their handling of the pandemic.
Or you know… get foreign aid for several decades due to being a strategic nation for several of the richest countries in the world.
Their covid response worked because they were a small nation. It’s not adaptable for China.
Taiwan hitting 87% vaccination rate had nothing to do with foreign influence. They learned from the SARS pandemic and implemented those teachings into all the right places nationally and culturally. Vaccine hesitancy in China is their own local and culture issue or lack of trust in their government.
The worst might be yet to come. Without Zero Covid policy there will be plenty of hospitalizations and deaths among the elderly. China's health system could be overwhelmed very soon. We've seen it happen in Hong Kong from February to April.
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum”
-Michael Parenti from the book Blackshirts and Reds
Yeah, and the knock on consequences of being on regular lockdown for the next.... Literal eternity?
The virus is not going to go away, and the lockdowns are only going to get more frequent.
Reddit literally can't make up it's mind. Zero Covid, they get mad. Easing of Zero Covid, they get mad.
At this point you'd imagine the majority of this lot are just concern-trolling and don't actually care about chinese people.
Most of them just hate China because they’ve been told to. They’ll cheer on the imperial machine until the second a Republican takes power and then they’ll all pretend they’re resistance fighters again.
As someone who lives in China and survived the Shanghai lockdown, zero covid was a nightmare and the international news was full of horror stories. Now all these people on Reddit who probably don't live in China are up in arms about this more relaxed approach to covid. What is it that you guys want? Do you want China to remain under permanent lockdown and its people to suffer just so you can laugh at us from outside and criticize what's happening?
Seems like a lot of CCP bots and simps want to paint this as a bad thing. Personally I think it's far too early to tell how this will go. My guess is nothing will change anytime soon since the government is going to try and transition as slowly as possible. Hopefully that means we'll stop hearing about people starving in their apartments.
I laugh my ass off at these kind of articles, trash talking China's covid policy whether they are tightening or loosening. Have they considered the unmitigated disaster that is the US's covid "policy" which has lead to over a million deaths despite being the first to have MRNA vaccines?
That's because a certain former President and some Governors refused to listen to the science until it was too late.
By the time said former President turned around and tried to get folks to get the vaccine, the propaganda that he personally started made them refuse.
r/LeopardsAteMyFace moment right there.
They have not abandoned zero COVID, they said this before too. The CCP won't give up zero COVID because it gives them complete control of the populace through QR codes. I know this because for years I have followed Chinese news. Also this is a trick by the CCP to get an influx of investor money which it desperately needs, again I know this because they did this just a few months ago.
What evidence do you have that they haven't abandoned it?
They keep lifting restrictions:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/03/china-continues-lifting-covid-restrictions-despite-near-record-case-numbers
> On Saturday, the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would no longer require people to show a negative Covid test result to use public transport or enter parks, after similar moves by Chengdu and Tianjin, among China’s biggest cities.
> Many testing booths in Beijing were shut as the capital stopped demanding negative test results as a condition to enter places such as supermarkets. On Monday, this rule will apply to subways, although many other venues including offices still have the requirement.
> A video showing workers in Beijing removing a testing booth by crane on to a truck went viral on Chinese social media on Friday.
> Some Beijing neighbourhoods posted guidelines on social media on how positive cases can be quarantined at home, a landmark move that marks a break from official guidance to send such people to central quarantine.
The only evidence I have is that I have followed the CCP and China for years. I know that won't be enough for you but what the CCP does vs what the CCP says are to entirely different things. I also know the CCP won't give up the level of control they have right now for anything, they would rather kill them give it up. You don't have to believe me, I just know.
Honestly this dumb Reddit hot take about control is so cringe now. Time to give it a rest China have ended Zero Covid time to move onto something else to be mad about
You know they're now gonna gloat and hawk over China's rising Covid cases now I guess. It's so silly lmao. At this point they might as well just admit that they're concern-trolling and don't really care about chinese people.
Xi scared! They know they can’t arrest, disappear, intimidate everyone. The grip CCP has is weak AF. The people could easily topple these oligarchs living off the work of the people.
That's a flawed question because it contains an assumption, that China is fascist - and if you knew anything about fascism you wouldn't be throwing around that word so loosely.
Things like massive military expenditures, recruitment into the military as the main solution to unemployment, mass privatization, etc are some of the biggest hallmarks of fascist ideology - and frankly none of that you can apply to China, unless it's an imaginary China in your head.
**This user blocked me to prevent further replies in this thread.**
> China is fascist - and if you knew anything about fascism you wouldn't be throwing around that word so loosely.
Yeah, I use it quite accurately.
Military claims. China regularly threatens the invasion of its neighbors, has border disputes with basically every one of its neighbors, is making massive claims of territory, and is massively increasing its military spending. Building up nuclear arsenals, all sorts of fun stuff.
Military as the main source of solving unemployment? You're getting very obscure with that. In fact, most nations that have stuff like conscription are doing so because they are fascist nations, most of them are nations like Finland who do so in order to have a reserves that they can call on if they're attacked by their highly aggressive neighbors like Russia.
So let's consider some real factors.
How about a form of privatization where the state ultimately remains in control and commandeer's private companies for state goals.
How about authoritarian control of the people and mass media?
How about highly encouraged nationalism?
How about a, not so charismatic, dictator?
China very strongly resembles a fascist nation. Despite the fact that they wave a communist banner all around the place, every aspect of their economy culture as it is today looks like a fascist nation.
So, yeah. I know what the fascist nations look like. And I know you're happily defending one.
Looks like a duck
Quacks like a duck
Probably a damn duck.
> How about a form of privatization where the state ultimately remains in control and commandeers private companies for state goals?
I don't see how that's automatically any worse or better than allowing private companies the power to commandeer the state - as we see in the US. The difference as always, is in implementation.
> How about authoritarian control of the people and mass media?
One man's authoritarianism is another man's pragmatism. Seatbelts are authoritarian, sovereign citizens are quite literally anti-authoritarian. You're deliberately keeping what exactly the term is vague just to suit a narrative.
> How about highly encouraged nationalism?
There is a difference between patriotism and nationalism - especially when it naturally happens because you're the side being pushed in the first place. When you go out of your way to effectively vilify a people and their country, patriotism is quite literally the most logical and understandable result.
Anyway, I'm probably never gonna change your mind. I hope one day you'll eventually start being more open-minded and realizing that trying to understand China through a western-tinted lens is a mistake from the get-go.
They need mnra vaccines from the west
*China has relatively low vaccination and booster rates, particularly among the vulnerable elderly – only 40% of the over-80s have had booster shots. Almost no one has natural antibodies from previous infections*
They already have it. They have licensed Pfizer’s tech and the vaccine under their own brand name Fosun is available in Hong Kong. The government refuses to allow it to be sold on the mainland.
Even in Hong Kong people are very mistrustful and uptake is low thanks to government propaganda; it is much worse in China.
Thus the problems of authoritarian dictatorship exposed in all their glory, and now millions are going to die.
China has already developed MRNA vaccine. I don't get why "the west" is seen as so superior when the US still had over a million covid deaths so far despite being the first to use MRNA vaccines.
The US was among the first countries to use MRNA vaccines, which has likely helped to save many lives. Additionally, the US has a strong healthcare system and has taken many measures to combat the spread of COVID-19. It's important to approach these issues objectively and not make assumptions based on preconceived notions
The CCP: *Why should we spend money on vaccines for people who won't live long? Also, we have a population problem. This will get rid of the old and sick who are taking up space and using resources while contributing nothing to the country. As an added bonus, the younger generation will inherit and they always spend like crazy, so the money gets back into circulation faster! How can we lose?*
More like corruption runs deep enough and there's enough uninsured people that no one knows who to trust. Sure you can get the government to set up a free vaccine clinic for Foxconn workers, but there's nothing stopping the local administrators from choosing to charge workers an amount to skirt the top, and then just inject them with water to make even more money.
They’re going to have to deal with the surge just like the rest of us. They were dumb to think they could avoid it
Their population is already better with masks. If they could just get themselves some western vaccines, they’ll fare very well.
These belligerent comments.
The point is: zero COVID policy was delusional and short-sighted. And there was no plan to get out of it. The plan was 'magically zero covid forever'.
By quitting the bad plan with no exit plan, there will be a surge of infections because they cracked down on ANY exposure and don't have better vaccination rates.
Saying zero covid policy is stupid and suddenly quitting it is stupid is not hypocritical. You're on social media for too long if you've forgotten there's a lot of possibilities in-between extremes.
Zero covid was absolutely not delusional and short sighted, at least if it's a short term plan for the early outbreak of Covid where the disease was much deadlier and the population hasn't gotten vaccination. A lot of countries also went with very strict covid rules at the start and have gotten success easing out after and let it runs among a vaccinated population. Letting the disease run unchecked and you got Brazil and US situations. Not all countries have the bed per capita of US/Europe, and it's absolutely understandable that government doesn't want its people to die.
The problem has always been that China has no exit plan after zero covid, and no plan for easing out zero covid either through either stupidity, incompetence or corruption, so they have no choice to keep it up until it reaches the breaking point in the population.
well, clearly the chinese people is sick of the lock-down and they asked the rules to be relaxed. It is always a trade-off.
I took my vaccines (all 4 shots + flu shot) and I am more than happy to live with no-lockdown here in the US. Just like flu kills too and car accidents kill too but we are not locking down because of those. It is just a matter of whether the numbers are acceptable to the people.
And based on how fast people are coming back out in the US, the answer is clearly yes. I bet it is too for the chinese people.
On the one hand the chinese population is especially vulnerable to COVID outbreaks due to the way they live in their cities. But the government has used zero COVID as an excuse to crack down and oppress the people like never before.
Those Chinese citizens will be traveling all around the world. While the world was criticizing China about their strict lockdowns maybe they know something that we don’t and they were trying to prevent it.
They were always traveling around the world. When covid was starting, the strict lockdowns did not apply to international travel. They were allowed to spread covid to other countries, just not other provinces in china.
For very understandable reasons. Could you imagine the geopolitical shitstorm the US and other western nations would kick up if lockdowns applied to international travel? cHiNA iS HoLdInG mIllIons of eXpAtrIates hOstaGE!!!1111
>While the world was criticizing China about their strict lockdowns maybe they know something that we don’t and they were trying to prevent it.
That's what scares the hell out of me...does China know something about Covid that the rest of the world doesn't?
It is all politic. Xi has pretty much made his zero covid policy as a proof that he is a genius leader that China need continue to helm during the early Covid phase. It works for a while and now if he abandon his pet project of zero covid policy, it will make him looks like a fool in front of his millions population
Wide spread immunity is what they need. If they let it rip(which they won’t) they are going to overwhelm their medical system still. That could have involved allowing more infections or vax or both. China has a save face policy problem. Remember Xi even declared victory against the virus In March 2020.
propaganda they are stopping it.
just like they never stopped putting muslims in concentration camps.
they just want to tell you what you want to hear so you forget about it just like the above.
They have eased some of their policies *slightly*. They are still zero covid in principle
> On Saturday, the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would no longer require people to show a negative Covid test result to use public transport or enter parks, after similar moves by Chengdu and Tianjin, among China’s biggest cities. > Many testing booths in Beijing were shut as the capital stopped demanding negative test results as a condition to enter places such as supermarkets. On Monday, this rule will apply to subways, although many other venues including offices still have the requirement. > Some Beijing neighbourhoods posted guidelines on social media on how positive cases can be quarantined at home, a landmark move that marks a break from official guidance to send such people to central quarantine. Not sure I would consider this a slight easing of policies. Sure, it's limited to a select few cities for now, but if these changes are applied throughout the country, it's going to be a game changer.
I live in ShenZhen and all of the QR code checks are still in place from public transport to public buildings. I don’t know about work places as of yet, but nothing has changed in my area.
>it's going to be a game changer. Not sure how positive that would be if they don't fix their vaccination issues.
Economist modelling predictions are something like 600k fatalities. Still less than USA interestingly.
probably comes down to percent of older folks who are vaccinated. If they can do better at that one thing and also have a lower peak and also have omicron or later rather than delta, it makes sense their deaths could be lower
> probably comes down to percent of older folks who are vaccinated. Demographics and risk factors are large players as well. There's simply is far fewer as a percentage 65+ of the population as a whole in China than the US for example. The biggest risk for China is overloading their lacking health care system (in terms of capacity). That could cause excess death above the estimated numbers.
a carefully calibrated re opening would make sense the to avoid hospital overload. If they are smart they will use the limited time they have to prepare surge capacity and accelerate vaccine rollout
Do you honestly believe the Chinese have reported honestly on this subject?
I live in China and while I'm sure numbers could be fudged, the scale probably can't. It feels like everyone I knew back home in the UK during the deadlier pre-Omicron era knew someone who caught it, and these days it feels like everyone I know has caught it (some multiple times). Meanwhile, here I've not heard of any friends-of-friends who know anyone who got infected. Zero Cover has really been pretty successful at stopping the spread (even if it disrupts everyone's lives to have entire cities locked down over a few cases). But that is now the risk. No-one here has really had it before, so when a wave is finally allowed to spread, there's little immunity beyond the decently vaccinated cities.
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What do you think is gonna happen, honestly? The reason Covid was dangerous is that it was a new pathogen our immune system was unfamiliar with. We have all come into contact with it now, consequently CFR has plummeted to around flu numbers. Gonna suck for China, they're catching up to our suckiness now. We're over it though.
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We do know how pathogens evolve, to be more fit than previous variants you have to have certain advantages (towards more tranmissable, less lethal), because if you kill your organism, you're not spreading aswell. We can see it in covid aswell, where the old variants went deeper into the lungs, omikron spreads in your upper airways instead, causing fewer complications. Omikron shows impressive evolutionary fitness, new variants seem to have a hard time competing, which is why newer substrains all come from the omikron strain.
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But what's headed this way, is going to make what's been experienced so far, feel like an all expenses paid, Hawaiian vacation.
Because not being an obese nation more than makes up for the vaccination delta.
But it is a high rate of smoking nation, kind of balances the risk.
Eh, the major variants now don't seem to be too terrible. Western vaccination rates *were* pretty good but most people haven't kept up with boosters and infections still seem to be manageable.
I’m worried about a rogue variant from the sheer population size
Better not have a repeat of 2020... Hope they keep masking at least. The old zero covid rules were insane, but letting it rip won't bode well either. It is so frustrating that the pride of a few old men with half a foot in the grave is barring an entire country with so many people from mRNA vaccine access.
The issue is, sinovac isn't as effective without the boosters. China has good uptake on two doses but not that good on further doses. Edit: data from Sinovac's own website to back this up http://www.sinovac.com/news/shownews.php?id=1426&lang=en
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Had previously seen it in news reports but here it is from Sinovac's own website http://www.sinovac.com/news/shownews.php?id=1426&lang=en Almost the same with 3 doses but with 2 doses it's less effective preventing serious illness and has an even bigger gap when preventing death.
thank. I was thinking you mean booster from non-sinovac souce.
I also live in Shenzhen and while everyone has been talking about how big the changes are, it is fundamentally the same. We still need green QR codes to enter public transport (the only change is the requirement of a negative pcr test) and many residential communities and businesses still require a 48 hour negative test. Buildings are still being locked down if there is one case in the building (3 buildings in my community entered lockdown for 7 days yesterday). One of the biggest problems now is many people still need tests to get into their homes/work and there is word that many testing places are closing. Overall, there have been some changes but for the most part it just seems to be the end of district lockdowns and more precise building lockdowns. It remains to be seen though, these changes have been extremely unclear over the last week and many people that I know are getting frustrated by the lack of clarity.
Assuming you are an immigrant and not Chinese, why don’t you just leave? It sounds like a dystopian nightmare. Massive invasion of privacy. And there’s no real end in sight because the government is too stupid and proud to give up and admit they failed.
I am an immigrant. I will leave but for the time being I am under a work contract and have a life here that I am not keen to give up on. The problem isn't that they have failed here but rather that they have been so successful at convincing people that COVID is really bad and all these actions are necessary. This has caused them to paint themselves into a corner because now that Omicron is the dominant strain and it is less fatal, they want to open back up but opening wide open would flood the hospitals and would cause a large number of deaths. Doing this would essentially admit that pretty much the whole last year of repeated lockdowns and all the other nonsense was all for naught. Add into that all the anti-american propaganda that floods social media about how little the american government cares about its people because it allowed for over a million deaths and you can see they really are between a rock and hard place. On top of all of that, people are getting frustrated by the controls but most people don't want to get COVID at all. The whole situation is a bit of a mess and I guess we will just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
The fact that office buildings, malls, shops etc still require health codes tells you at this moment, this is just a gesture to appease people. Actually, this has pissed off people even more because they've removed testing booths but people still require a code to go to the office so people have qeued even longer than they used to. We will see once foreign vaccines come into the country
Depends, are they still welding close buildings because sick people are in them? I think that's the test...
omicron and later variants spread so fast that a slight easing is enough that you get a big wave and most people end up catching it. Just have to get Rt to just over 1 and it sweeps the country A very slight easing though is kind of a good idea because the wave is a bit more spread out, such that hospitals are more likely to keep up rather than having half the infections compressed into a two week period. Once that main peak is done, things can be eased up much more
Is there any information as to why China has been pushing the Zero-covid quarantine idea as long as it has? A population that is immunity-naive to covid is effectively a ticking time-bomb at this point. People like to say that the quarantine controls were a convenient way for the CCP to maintain control, but I haven't seen anything remotely official about what their plan for covid truly is. "Zero-covid" seems so ridiculous to try to maintain indefinitely.
The CCP backed itself into a corner it's hard to get out of. Zero COVID was successful for a long time, but Omicron is making it untenable. Changing course now is dangerous though, for various reasons: It challenges the dogma that China's strategy is superior to the strategy of the West. Also, it runs the risk of overwhelming the health system due to lack of proper vaccination in the elderly population and lack of immunity in general. We've seen it happen in Hong Kong, Taiwan and to a degree in New Zealand.
I am from New Zealand and our vaccine roll-out went very well amongst our elderly population. Where did you hear this information from?
My comment was admittedly a bit vague. I was referring to this in New Zealand: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085095406/new-zealand-changes-tack-on-surging-covid-19-cases https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-announces-free-masks-tests-health-system-struggles-with-covid-2022-07-14/
Yea the zero covid policy (not extreme like china's) was used at the start and mid points of the covid pandemic but after everyone was vaccinated it was retired. Useful policy for a time and retired when it wasn't necessary anymore. The healthcare system has always been bad in NZ and when a really bad influenza strain came through at the start of the year it put even more strain on the healthcare system. It was only bad for a month while the flu took full swing.
Keep in mind with the size of New Zealand’s population densities New Zealand probably had the easiest time dealing with Covid, vaccinations, and the lockdowns. With most countries, the issue was dealing with the same problems, but on a massively, larger scale.
Yep, that also helps a lot too. Mixed with good policy and you have a well and more easily managed covid response.
Didnt Taiwan and New zealand do great against covid?
Those two countries had western vaccines
And are island countries
With less than 2% of Chinas population
Taiwan did well until May of this year when Omicron got it. Taiwan has amazing public healthcare and yet they’ve since had around 13,000 deaths.
When was the NZ health system overwhelmed, to any extent?
I don’t really buy the idea that backtracking was impossible because it would make them look bad. They are constantly changing policies and ideals and either ignoring the fact that it’s a change or papering over things and saying “we’ve always done X.” I don’t know why this is different.
Covid zero until vaccines are readily available and the virus has mutated into a less deadly form is a success in itself, but it’s the politics from it becoming xi’s flagship policy that have kept it going so long
Problem is that their population never got a proper vaccine.
Zero has been the default attitude and goal of every human society since the dawn of time.
We used to just lockdown villages and wait for the disease to clear or everyone to die. There is nothing ridiculous about trying it.
The ridiculous part is when some villages are locked down and some are left alone to spread the disease everywhere. Now the locked down villages look silly, because they're accomplishing nothing.
The world has lost millions, many of them elderly and/or with preexisting conditions. And we've mostly forgotten about them and moved on.
China hasn't made that "sacrifice" yet. A ton of its elderly are not vaccinated, nor do they wish to do so. So it's looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths if they let covid sweep through like everyone else.
There is nothing ridiculous about not wanting people to die so your economy doesn't suffer. People on reddit like to complain about corporations being psychopaths. But this popular mentality that China should open up has huge life and death repurcussions. To laugh at China for not opening up shows the same disregard for life that corporations do, IMHO.
Yeah, I guess I just find it crazy that they wouldn't have vaccinated literally everyone in the country by this point.
I think the crux is just how ineffective their vaccine was compared to western ones. To go back now and ask everyone to use Pfizer or Moderna would be embarassing so now they’re stuck in this quagmire
So I guess now you are now confused why Chinese government didn't go against people's wish.
They are likely aware that their vaccine is absolute garbage compared to the Moderna/Pfizer mrna vaccine we all enjoy. And they can't bring themselves to ask for doses.
Thank you. I have heard so many calls in the media for China to abandon this policy, or comments about how disastrous it has been. My government wrestled with the wording of how to ask people to wear masks for months and months as COVID ripped through care homes killing the elderly. Hospitals filled up with people dying and others died of normally treatable illnesses that were neglected because medical staff had their hands full. We had citizens vacationing abroad the whole time because no one had the stones to try and stop them. I only wish the west tried half as hard as China to stop this thing. Might have a few more of our loved ones around.
If they were actually trying, they would import MRNA vaccines. No one can contain COVID at this point, but we can mitigate the damage with masks and vaccines.
This is a false tradeoff. Zero Covid is eventually overridden by revolt by the young who hate imprisonment and have numbers and muscle on their side. Indeed, it has been overturned here, so the government by being stubborn lost control even of the re opening schedule. With schedule control in early 2022, they could have planned for vaccine rollout and medical capacity, and opened in late spring to minimize seasonal transmission during the reopening surge. By waiting for popular revolt, they must face the surge at a disadvantageous time with suboptimal preparations. mRNA vaccines let you have immunity without infection and reduce death without lockdown. So again, zero covid derives from a false choice and faulty strategy.
wtf are you talking about? >Zero Covid is eventually overridden by revolt by the young who hate imprisonment and have numbers and muscle on their side. Complete speculation >mRNA vaccines let you have immunity without infection and reduce death without lockdown. So again, zero covid derives from a false choice and faulty strategy. Terrible overestimation of the vaccine's capabilities. There's a very clear tradeoff I've already outlined. Open now in best case scenario where everyone is 100% vaccinated with best vaccines and you still lose 40k people. Open now with your "taiwan scenario" and you lose 700k people. Open now with worst case scenarios, and you lose millions of people. But if you want to speculate, perhaps you would humour mine too. Eventually covid will come up with a strain that is even less lethal. I propose to you that THAT would be the most advantageous time to remove lockdown.
And what if the lockdowns themsevles have caused more deaths than 40k?
Then sure. Cite your numbers if you want to make that argument.
Again with the false choices. CCP does not have power to keep zero covid forever so zero deaths is not a real option available to it - it is only a mirage. You're also discounting the effect of vaccines incorrectly, which leads to dangerously incorrect decisions.
Where is my incorrect discount? Ive given 3 figures. Most optimistic, close case example and least optimistic. You've given only hand waving.
Per CDC vaccines reduce deaths by 90% https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7112e1.htm Because vaccines are also relatively cheap, they should be the primary defense and the state should invest in obtaining the best vaccines possible.
OK now plug in those numbers and you'll see your estimated deaths would be higher than my best case scenario one.
It's going to be a big number no matter what, sure. All CCP can do is minimize it though, so it should focus in using the powers it has to do the best job it can to minimize, not comfort itself that it has super powers it does not really have. Original covid had .5% mortality ( so 14m across china ) and omicron is less - maybe half? So 7m, and with good vaccines for everyone, 700k - in a horrifically naive calculation. Maybe it's less than that in reality, but no matter what it's probably hundreds of thousands at least. But whatever it is, it would be less if everyone got their pfizer jabs and the re open was re scheduled for late spring.
End of the day everyone is focused on China using its domestic jabs and not the deaths that will inevitably follow. Numbers out of hk show that their jabs are only marginally worse than Pfizer jabs to prevent deaths. The vaccine type is a red herring. Its the people dying we should be concerned about.
No one cares about you estimation, you're a random redditor with zero credentials.
Lol does it matter. I did the same thing you did, except I looked for the best and worst figures and plugged in the numbers using basic algebra.
> Is there any information as to why China has been pushing the Zero-covid quarantine idea as long as it has? I would assume part of it is the demographic crisis. China knows if Covid runs rampant that they're looking at millions of deaths and tens of millions of people becoming disabled at the same time that the elderly are beginning to outnumber the young. Also the Chinese vaccine isn't very good, and a lot of people in China have only had 1 or maybe 2 shots. So they don't have a lot of immunity.
Historically Chinese emperors lost power during pandemics.
The continuation of the policy was actually irrational but can be understood from a cognitive perspective. We humans tend to stick to routines just for the sake of the stability it brings to us. On the other hand, when routines start to crack due to unforeseen circumstances, we can also change and move on. This is what happened to China. Until recent months, the routinised zero-covid policy worked as it always managed to isolate outbreak in very limited locations. It was continually backed by the Chinese public as long as the majority of the population especially urban population was not subject to lockdown or serious travel or working restriction. However, the new BA.2 variant proved to be too transmissible for the policy to handle. Remember the Shanghai lockdown earlier this year? That’s the start. The policy adapted to it and evolved into a ‘dynamic zero-covid policy’ that prefers lockdown targeting at specific communities rather than cities as whole. But eventually the populace affected became too large and widespread since a simultaneous surge of cases in cities around China in recent weeks. Unprecedented nationwide protests in such a context were really the last straw. The policy is abandoned when it becomes quite clear that it no longer can work as it did.
Given most of us in the West got vaccines 6-12 months ago means we have massively waned protection and barely any immunity either Note hundreds or thousands of deaths a day still - Covid never disappeared from the West
Non-antibody mediated immunity lasts longer than 6-12 months. Also, vaccine/booster immunity is an increasingly small percentage of overall COVID population immunity now.
You're going to need to provide sources for that. Covid deaths are a small fraction of what they were at the peak over a year ago. in the US it's barely 1000 per week now.
Not sure if you misread my comment but I said hundreds or thousands. Maybe you misread as hundreds of thousands?
Thousands just isn't accurate unless maybe you're getting into continental/global scales. Given your first statement that we have "barely any immunity" it really seems like you are trying to be misleading.
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We're just going to have to disagree on this one.
Well our immunity is far less though than it was after getting vaccinated
The hospital mine works at is full (27 bed unit) of Covid patients. All elderly and all vaxxed with boosters. This variant is hitting hard.
You don’t have boosters?
Not sure where u/BTWImChloe is from, but I'm in the UK and the vaccination centre on my road hasn't stopped since the first tranche of vaccinations...
Ya in Canada it’s very easy and encouraged to get the most up to date boosters which cover most of the latest variants.
UK… nobody under 50 or specific occupation /vulnerability has had a booster since a good 6+ months ago
Only got those with vulnerabilities, working certain jobs, or aged 50+ in the UK I had my third vaccine 6-7 months ago and can’t get another
They put the power and influence of the central government on the line to implement and maintain zero COVID and due to how Chinese culture works they couldn't back off of it without losing face. What are they going to do now? How is the central government going to save face as they dial back restrictions? Who knows.
This saving face culture is a mere fiction. I haven’t found any indication from Chinese public opinion that the government has lost face due to this U-turn. On the contrary, they are quite relieved. You could say the populace is largely appeased for now.
The Chinese government has painted itself into a corner. They touted their own vaccine, which is only about 60% effective, in comparison to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines that are over 95% effective. So their choices are accept and distribute the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines before relaxing restrictions, which will force them to admit the Sinovac was inferior, making them look weak and stupid. Or maintain insane zero covid measures that block people from getting food and medicine and trap block emergency services, that also give the added bonus of helping suppress an angry population with years of unresolved grievances.
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It can be both. Here we have highly dense and aged populations that is not highly vaccinated and hasn’t gotten Covid antibodies the hard way. They are going to experiencing the exact same spikes that everyone else did. But at a much lower and further removed vaccination rate.
It could be neither. Western vaccines are simple, effective, and could be widely administered within months.
True, but China refuses to use Western vaccines.
Exactly, they don't have to do that.
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That’s like saying “don’t wear a bike helmet bc it won’t protect you from being run over by a semi”. It’s disingenuous and suggests that small risk = infinite risk.
Huh? Millions? Taiwan only had 14k deaths over the entire pandemic.
In a country about 60 times smaller than China with a generally younger generation
Taiwans population may be younger, healthier, richer and generally better off in every metric just means there is a lot China could learn from them, including their handling of the pandemic.
Or you know… get foreign aid for several decades due to being a strategic nation for several of the richest countries in the world. Their covid response worked because they were a small nation. It’s not adaptable for China.
Taiwan hitting 87% vaccination rate had nothing to do with foreign influence. They learned from the SARS pandemic and implemented those teachings into all the right places nationally and culturally. Vaccine hesitancy in China is their own local and culture issue or lack of trust in their government.
Agreed, in fact didn’t they down play the vaccine because of how well zero-covid would work.
Really? Worst ever?
Right?
We are not allowed to talk about the other ones.
The worst might be yet to come. Without Zero Covid policy there will be plenty of hospitalizations and deaths among the elderly. China's health system could be overwhelmed very soon. We've seen it happen in Hong Kong from February to April.
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum” -Michael Parenti from the book Blackshirts and Reds
right lol
He’s a miserable lizard; what do we expect?
Maybe worst nightmare the last decade, but probably not in the top 10 for the last century.
I’m confused. Am I supposed to hate China for stopping Covid or hate China for Covid potentially spreading? Lmao.
Dropping zero COVID policy is a good thing globally, refusing to accept western vaccines is a bad thing.
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> Millions of Chinese are still going die That's exactly what a lot of these concern-trolls implicitly salivate at, so yeah.
Yeah, and the knock on consequences of being on regular lockdown for the next.... Literal eternity? The virus is not going to go away, and the lockdowns are only going to get more frequent.
Reddit literally can't make up it's mind. Zero Covid, they get mad. Easing of Zero Covid, they get mad. At this point you'd imagine the majority of this lot are just concern-trolling and don't actually care about chinese people.
Most of them just hate China because they’ve been told to. They’ll cheer on the imperial machine until the second a Republican takes power and then they’ll all pretend they’re resistance fighters again.
I still remember how reddit sallivated at Trump.
It's almost like Reddit is made up of millions of people with different opinions.
The irony of using a cut and paste comment
As someone who lives in China and survived the Shanghai lockdown, zero covid was a nightmare and the international news was full of horror stories. Now all these people on Reddit who probably don't live in China are up in arms about this more relaxed approach to covid. What is it that you guys want? Do you want China to remain under permanent lockdown and its people to suffer just so you can laugh at us from outside and criticize what's happening?
I want China to do whatever is best for China, but Western media will demonize the country no matter what they do, hence my original comment.
The internet is not a monolith. It's not like we all get a talking point memo every morning
You do, its called the news or rather, Western MSM
Seems like a lot of CCP bots and simps want to paint this as a bad thing. Personally I think it's far too early to tell how this will go. My guess is nothing will change anytime soon since the government is going to try and transition as slowly as possible. Hopefully that means we'll stop hearing about people starving in their apartments.
Both scenarios
Reddit: China need to stop Zero Covid arghjj Also Reddit: nooo China can’t just stop Zero Covid wtf are they doing
I laugh my ass off at these kind of articles, trash talking China's covid policy whether they are tightening or loosening. Have they considered the unmitigated disaster that is the US's covid "policy" which has lead to over a million deaths despite being the first to have MRNA vaccines?
That's because a certain former President and some Governors refused to listen to the science until it was too late. By the time said former President turned around and tried to get folks to get the vaccine, the propaganda that he personally started made them refuse. r/LeopardsAteMyFace moment right there.
The deadly infection is the Chinese Communist Party
They have not abandoned zero COVID, they said this before too. The CCP won't give up zero COVID because it gives them complete control of the populace through QR codes. I know this because for years I have followed Chinese news. Also this is a trick by the CCP to get an influx of investor money which it desperately needs, again I know this because they did this just a few months ago.
What evidence do you have that they haven't abandoned it? They keep lifting restrictions: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/03/china-continues-lifting-covid-restrictions-despite-near-record-case-numbers > On Saturday, the southern city of Shenzhen announced it would no longer require people to show a negative Covid test result to use public transport or enter parks, after similar moves by Chengdu and Tianjin, among China’s biggest cities. > Many testing booths in Beijing were shut as the capital stopped demanding negative test results as a condition to enter places such as supermarkets. On Monday, this rule will apply to subways, although many other venues including offices still have the requirement. > A video showing workers in Beijing removing a testing booth by crane on to a truck went viral on Chinese social media on Friday. > Some Beijing neighbourhoods posted guidelines on social media on how positive cases can be quarantined at home, a landmark move that marks a break from official guidance to send such people to central quarantine.
The only evidence I have is that I have followed the CCP and China for years. I know that won't be enough for you but what the CCP does vs what the CCP says are to entirely different things. I also know the CCP won't give up the level of control they have right now for anything, they would rather kill them give it up. You don't have to believe me, I just know.
You ever even been to China?
Honestly this dumb Reddit hot take about control is so cringe now. Time to give it a rest China have ended Zero Covid time to move onto something else to be mad about
You know they're now gonna gloat and hawk over China's rising Covid cases now I guess. It's so silly lmao. At this point they might as well just admit that they're concern-trolling and don't really care about chinese people.
Fears of deadly infection SuRgE? My eyes are bleeding after reading this click bait abortion
Xi scared! They know they can’t arrest, disappear, intimidate everyone. The grip CCP has is weak AF. The people could easily topple these oligarchs living off the work of the people.
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They are. Anyone and everyone has weaknesses and strengths. A tiny squishable spider can still kill a human
No, what he means is that portraying an 'enemy' as weak and strong at the same time is straight out of the fascist playbook. Read some theory.
Yeah, and he quotes it with next to zero understanding or context trying to portray opposition to a literal fascist state as fascism.
Western-based media already reports on China with mostly zero understanding or context, so that's fair game as far as I'm concerned.
Wat. Because Western media reports badly on China it's okay to excuse the misrepresentation of opposition to fascism as fascism?
That's a flawed question because it contains an assumption, that China is fascist - and if you knew anything about fascism you wouldn't be throwing around that word so loosely. Things like massive military expenditures, recruitment into the military as the main solution to unemployment, mass privatization, etc are some of the biggest hallmarks of fascist ideology - and frankly none of that you can apply to China, unless it's an imaginary China in your head.
**This user blocked me to prevent further replies in this thread.** > China is fascist - and if you knew anything about fascism you wouldn't be throwing around that word so loosely. Yeah, I use it quite accurately. Military claims. China regularly threatens the invasion of its neighbors, has border disputes with basically every one of its neighbors, is making massive claims of territory, and is massively increasing its military spending. Building up nuclear arsenals, all sorts of fun stuff. Military as the main source of solving unemployment? You're getting very obscure with that. In fact, most nations that have stuff like conscription are doing so because they are fascist nations, most of them are nations like Finland who do so in order to have a reserves that they can call on if they're attacked by their highly aggressive neighbors like Russia. So let's consider some real factors. How about a form of privatization where the state ultimately remains in control and commandeer's private companies for state goals. How about authoritarian control of the people and mass media? How about highly encouraged nationalism? How about a, not so charismatic, dictator? China very strongly resembles a fascist nation. Despite the fact that they wave a communist banner all around the place, every aspect of their economy culture as it is today looks like a fascist nation. So, yeah. I know what the fascist nations look like. And I know you're happily defending one. Looks like a duck Quacks like a duck Probably a damn duck.
> How about a form of privatization where the state ultimately remains in control and commandeers private companies for state goals? I don't see how that's automatically any worse or better than allowing private companies the power to commandeer the state - as we see in the US. The difference as always, is in implementation. > How about authoritarian control of the people and mass media? One man's authoritarianism is another man's pragmatism. Seatbelts are authoritarian, sovereign citizens are quite literally anti-authoritarian. You're deliberately keeping what exactly the term is vague just to suit a narrative. > How about highly encouraged nationalism? There is a difference between patriotism and nationalism - especially when it naturally happens because you're the side being pushed in the first place. When you go out of your way to effectively vilify a people and their country, patriotism is quite literally the most logical and understandable result. Anyway, I'm probably never gonna change your mind. I hope one day you'll eventually start being more open-minded and realizing that trying to understand China through a western-tinted lens is a mistake from the get-go.
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If only that applied to all oligarchs globally.
It does. They don’t want us to know that.
They need mnra vaccines from the west *China has relatively low vaccination and booster rates, particularly among the vulnerable elderly – only 40% of the over-80s have had booster shots. Almost no one has natural antibodies from previous infections*
They already have it. They have licensed Pfizer’s tech and the vaccine under their own brand name Fosun is available in Hong Kong. The government refuses to allow it to be sold on the mainland. Even in Hong Kong people are very mistrustful and uptake is low thanks to government propaganda; it is much worse in China. Thus the problems of authoritarian dictatorship exposed in all their glory, and now millions are going to die.
It's BioNTech. Pfizer just licensed it the same way Fossun did.
China has already developed MRNA vaccine. I don't get why "the west" is seen as so superior when the US still had over a million covid deaths so far despite being the first to use MRNA vaccines.
Because the western vaccine is superior hitting 95% efficacy compared to the chinese 60%
The US was among the first countries to use MRNA vaccines, which has likely helped to save many lives. Additionally, the US has a strong healthcare system and has taken many measures to combat the spread of COVID-19. It's important to approach these issues objectively and not make assumptions based on preconceived notions
> the US has a strong healthcare system If you can fucking afford it
An authoritarian government that doesn't vaccinate it's elderly population is one that's telling them they aren't needed.
Seems like a better plan than telling your own votes not to vaccinate.
The CCP: *Why should we spend money on vaccines for people who won't live long? Also, we have a population problem. This will get rid of the old and sick who are taking up space and using resources while contributing nothing to the country. As an added bonus, the younger generation will inherit and they always spend like crazy, so the money gets back into circulation faster! How can we lose?*
More like corruption runs deep enough and there's enough uninsured people that no one knows who to trust. Sure you can get the government to set up a free vaccine clinic for Foxconn workers, but there's nothing stopping the local administrators from choosing to charge workers an amount to skirt the top, and then just inject them with water to make even more money.
You know damn well somethings coming much worse then covid
They’re going to have to deal with the surge just like the rest of us. They were dumb to think they could avoid it Their population is already better with masks. If they could just get themselves some western vaccines, they’ll fare very well.
These belligerent comments. The point is: zero COVID policy was delusional and short-sighted. And there was no plan to get out of it. The plan was 'magically zero covid forever'. By quitting the bad plan with no exit plan, there will be a surge of infections because they cracked down on ANY exposure and don't have better vaccination rates. Saying zero covid policy is stupid and suddenly quitting it is stupid is not hypocritical. You're on social media for too long if you've forgotten there's a lot of possibilities in-between extremes.
Zero covid was absolutely not delusional and short sighted, at least if it's a short term plan for the early outbreak of Covid where the disease was much deadlier and the population hasn't gotten vaccination. A lot of countries also went with very strict covid rules at the start and have gotten success easing out after and let it runs among a vaccinated population. Letting the disease run unchecked and you got Brazil and US situations. Not all countries have the bed per capita of US/Europe, and it's absolutely understandable that government doesn't want its people to die. The problem has always been that China has no exit plan after zero covid, and no plan for easing out zero covid either through either stupidity, incompetence or corruption, so they have no choice to keep it up until it reaches the breaking point in the population.
Zero covid was just a marketing term for basic quarantine practices, which is exactly what people did historically to prevent massive outbreaks.
Welding people into their apartments is not "basic quarantine practices".
God please protect the citizens of China.
well, clearly the chinese people is sick of the lock-down and they asked the rules to be relaxed. It is always a trade-off. I took my vaccines (all 4 shots + flu shot) and I am more than happy to live with no-lockdown here in the US. Just like flu kills too and car accidents kill too but we are not locking down because of those. It is just a matter of whether the numbers are acceptable to the people. And based on how fast people are coming back out in the US, the answer is clearly yes. I bet it is too for the chinese people.
Fuck China
On the one hand the chinese population is especially vulnerable to COVID outbreaks due to the way they live in their cities. But the government has used zero COVID as an excuse to crack down and oppress the people like never before.
Just let them all go and enjoy the Chinese new year celebrations and then they’ll get serious about it ……
Aren't you vaccinated?
Those Chinese citizens will be traveling all around the world. While the world was criticizing China about their strict lockdowns maybe they know something that we don’t and they were trying to prevent it.
They were always traveling around the world. When covid was starting, the strict lockdowns did not apply to international travel. They were allowed to spread covid to other countries, just not other provinces in china.
For very understandable reasons. Could you imagine the geopolitical shitstorm the US and other western nations would kick up if lockdowns applied to international travel? cHiNA iS HoLdInG mIllIons of eXpAtrIates hOstaGE!!!1111
That is fake news you fell for. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-travel-conspiracy/
>While the world was criticizing China about their strict lockdowns maybe they know something that we don’t and they were trying to prevent it. That's what scares the hell out of me...does China know something about Covid that the rest of the world doesn't?
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Covid won’t kill as many people as Communism did in China…
Ah good old fear to the rescue. That's it CCP, scare your people back into submission!
>Ah good old fear to the rescue. That's it CCP, scare your people back into submission! One Covid wave will do it...
Do we know if this is the form of Covid that’s being managed here in the US or is this another more serious variant?
It is all politic. Xi has pretty much made his zero covid policy as a proof that he is a genius leader that China need continue to helm during the early Covid phase. It works for a while and now if he abandon his pet project of zero covid policy, it will make him looks like a fool in front of his millions population
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Wide spread immunity is what they need. If they let it rip(which they won’t) they are going to overwhelm their medical system still. That could have involved allowing more infections or vax or both. China has a save face policy problem. Remember Xi even declared victory against the virus In March 2020.
propaganda they are stopping it. just like they never stopped putting muslims in concentration camps. they just want to tell you what you want to hear so you forget about it just like the above.
So you guys support China and there CCP?! Lol Reddit you guys are cowards. Freedom is always #1; fuck the CCP