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Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

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Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#61

Post by benjaminwootton »

user_named wrote: post #47
benjaminwootton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you still have to do social distancing, limiting numbers, limiting hospitality, QR checkins etc? Are people living in fear of Covid etc? I’m not saying it’s like that in China, but I would find it pretty hard to live like that plus no international travel to maintain zero Covid.

Social distancing has never been a big thing in China because we've had masks for two years. It's only when for example lining up for a covid test that there's been marked one meter distances you had to pay attention to. Only anti-mask backwards countries have promoted social distancing as a measure. You sometimes check in with qr, but most of the time you just show your green health code which is a qr too, and sign…

You are betraying your preconceptions here if you think masks are the difference between success and failure and QR codes and “health codes” are an acceptable and normal way to live.

That all sounds quite dystopian and of questionable value to me given what we know about Omnicron and the vaccine efficacy.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#62

Post by EGreg »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #50
samwillis wrote: post #45

I find this fascinating in comparison with the situation here in the UK where about 70% of the population are triple vaccinated. Omicron is everywhere, literally. Anecdotally I would say 80-90% of households with school aged kids have had Omicron since the beginning of January and it’s still doing the rounds. We now have no restrictions and even during the peak in Jan/Feb it was very very minimal. There will be no mo…

Omnicron in particular is so low impact that the response is primarily political, especially when you have vaccines and some pre existing immunity. Countries can choose to pretty much ignore it or go crazy over it as the politicians and Twitter demand. We just got bored of it in the UK and moved onto Boris’s parties and now Ukraine.

Omicron could be the best thing that happened -- a mild, very infectious variant that gives everyone NATURAL herd immunity to the entire coronavirus family. Why are politicians so afraid of it?

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#63

Post by chii »

user_named wrote: post #32
benjaminwootton wrote: post #21

It’s amazing the costs China are willing to bear for this. Inevitably they will lose the war, and when they do it is a mild disease going into what I assume is a well vaccinated population. The UK has been hard at times in 2020 and 2021, but Covid feels like ancient history here now, as it should do.

I think it's the opposite. Chinas economy was quickly back to normal in 2020 while other countries suffered. But it's going to be costly this time, for little return.

The chinese people are probably more conservative and will likely self-lockdown if the gov't doesn't handle the situation well by locking down early.

I think it's probably a better idea to give the populous assurances and demonstrate that outbreaks are contained, so that the populous return after the lockdown with confidence to go out and resume economic activity.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#64

Post by atian »

imiric wrote: post #57
elric wrote: post #36

Only a thousand daily cases in a country with a population of 1G? That's either very impressive, or very impressively underreported. For comparison, Belgium currently has 10 times as many daily new cases, with a population that's 100 times smaller (and no lockdown).

And 8K deaths since 2020: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn How the WHO can report these numbers with a straight face is beyond me.

You can try entering Beijing from the outside and see how difficult it is.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#65

Post by rob74 »

user_named wrote: post #24
captainmuon wrote: post #20

But even now, given that China is such a huge country, I think that the fraction of people inconvenienced by lockdown measures and other disturbances is smaller than in most western countries. Here in Germany, they are lifting most restrictions soon, but for example a lot of teachers are sick - which affects the childrens' parents as they can't go to work, and then their colleagues, and so on. It will take a long tim…

In my opinion china's policies have been the best, maybe together with New Zealand. We've basically been living as normal, much more so than any other country, except for some local cases here and there when there was a month of tightening. That's why I think it's ironic that once the virus basically becomes non-threatening, China has to enter the same type of lockdown as other countries did two years before. And tha…

The "zero Covid" approach has been doable with the "old" virus variants, but with Omicron being so infectious, it's (IMHO) simply not feasible anymore. And I wouldn't call it "non-threatening", maybe less threatening. Maybe now we are at the stage where we can really compare it with the flu and handle it with the same approach. Of course maybe another variant will appear that's as infectious as Omicron but as dangerous as the previous variants, then we really have a problem...

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#66

Post by em500 »

user_named wrote: post #17
Thorentis wrote: post #12

Why are they locking down for a variant that is less severe? Why aren't they accepting this is the best we'll get, and the sooner omicron becomes endemic the better. Rip off the bandaid.

I mentioned this in my OP. It is becoming clear also to policy makers that these measures are not enough for omicron, and also are not logical when the strain is so mild.

Omicron is not "so mild". It appeared to be mild in many other countries due to high vaccination rates and/or prior infections/deaths. This is not the case in China, where prior infections are very rare. And although the headline stats for the initial 2-dose vaccination rates are good, they didn't use the more effective mRNA vaccines, probably don't have a high recent booster rate, and most crucially, the vaccination rates among the elderly is relatively low.

Look at Hong Kong for a sobering example. They've never had any large outbreak during the entire pandemic until two months ago. Now they're averaging almost 200 Covid deaths per day, on a population of 7 million. Per capita this is worse than the peak of the Alpha and Delta waves in the US or UK. If a big outbreak like Hong Kong happens in China, they might be facing 50k+ deaths per day.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#67

Post by tjpnz »

senectus1 wrote: post #29
user_named wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90%+ have had two shots. Probably more like 95-99%. You can get third shots now.

yeah but the effectiveness of the sinovax is hardly reliable information imho

Annecdotal but I know a few families in the Philippines where some members got Pfizer and others got Sinovac. The Pfizer group did significantly better when the inevitable occurred (the situation last year was particularly horrific).

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#68

Post by teruakohatu »

In New Zealand we are currently experiencing our first wave, by captia our case numbers are insane, and reality is vastly higher than what is being reported because the system now relies on self reporting from RAT tests. In an hour we have as many new cases as we had in total in the first two years of COVID.

But life is going on as semi-normal, most people are being reasonably responsible. 96% of the 12 yr+ population is double vaccinated, and about 60% boosted. The government has ruled out more lockdowns.

I would be think China would have at least as good vaccination stats as New Zealand, and would be just as well equipped to deal with a "first" wave in 2022.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#69

Post by user_named »

rob74 wrote: post #65
user_named wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion china's policies have been the best, maybe together with New Zealand. We've basically been living as normal, much more so than any other country, except for some local cases here and there when there was a month of tightening. That's why I think it's ironic that once the virus basically becomes non-threatening, China has to enter the same type of lockdown as other countries did two years before. And tha…

The "zero Covid" approach has been doable with the "old" virus variants, but with Omicron being so infectious, it's (IMHO) simply not feasible anymore. And I wouldn't call it "non-threatening", maybe less threatening. Maybe now we are at the stage where we can really compare it with the flu and handle it with the same approach. Of course maybe another variant will appear that's as infectious as Omicron but as dangero…

Yup, exactly my point. I think the only issues with softer measures are, what if you get a more dangerous variant mixed in.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#70

Post by interpenetrate »

imiric wrote: post #57
elric wrote: post #36

Only a thousand daily cases in a country with a population of 1G? That's either very impressive, or very impressively underreported. For comparison, Belgium currently has 10 times as many daily new cases, with a population that's 100 times smaller (and no lockdown).

And 8K deaths since 2020: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn How the WHO can report these numbers with a straight face is beyond me.

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