So thoughtful of omicron to wait until after the Olympics!
Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
121–130 of 319 posts
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#122If Hong Kong is any indicator of what's coming in China, the scale of that wave will have serious consequences on the country if they continue to insist on enforcing their stringent (and heartless) zero-covid policy.
Be ready for even more supply-chain disruption.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#123In 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+ populatio…
> and reality is vastly higher than what is being reported because the system now relies on self reporting from RAT tests
Uh, that's not obvious. The RAT tests have massive false positive rates compared with PCR tests. Do they follow up a rapid antigen test with PCR?
The chinese vaccine is garbage too. Even the official numbers are not great, but some countries which bought the Chinese vaccine tried to return it because many batches that they got failed QA tests.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#124> can't quarantine and hospitalize people for omicron when it is not dangerous There are enough people it’s dangerous for, especially in a population not widely exposed to it and who haven’t had mRNA boosters, that it can cause hospitals to jam up and pictures of grandma dying on a stretcher outside a regional hospital. This is a political big deal when you’ve spent 2 years mouthing off about the decadent West’s poor…
Wrt. mRNA boosters, I know it is a common talking point that China is in trouble because it doesn't have mRNA-vaccines but I believe the vaccines that China have is of the type as the AstraZeneca vaccine, that is commonly used in the UK which now is free of COVID-restrictions. In other words; if is China is willing, it can go down the same path of vax-and-let-it-rip.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I can say anything I like about Xi Jinping when I'm on HN. HN is blocked in China btw.
So you use a VPN/Tor and trust this connection? Are you sure, the thought of "getting caught" does not influence your opinions? Because I think, it would influence my opinions I would dare to share. But I am ignorant about actual way of life in china, is it common and maybe even somewhat normal for tech people to have this freedom to just connect outside of the great firewall?
> Because I think, it would influence my opinions I would dare to share.
I would be amazed if the MSS decides to respond to these random pseudonymous comments I posted on HN/Reddit/Twitter, in English. I expect that talking to them about my shitposts in English (and then coreced into signing an "agreement" that I won't do it again), would be an exciting and entertaining experience :p ofc I might be outliers
> But I am ignorant about actual way of life in china, is it common and maybe even somewhat normal for tech people to have this freedom to just connect outside of the great firewall?
Well, Google is blocked. Baidu or Bing isn't nearly good for random tech queries. More importantly, even though not blocked, GitHub / DockerHub etc is painfully slow in China due to some misfortune about how China is connected to the global Internet. Without a tunnel I just can't work efficiently.
Every corps I worked for in China so far provided free Internet access for employees (at least engineers).
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
> Did they not tell you that in Belgium? What's up with this pointless snarkiness? You're making it sound like the machinations of an evil propaganda machine, when in reality Belgium has been quite good at overreporting covid stats. Not sure which stats you're referring to as being "some of the worst in the world".
COVID deaths per-capita were really high in Belgium and it was one of the worst in the world until recently, but it seems it's now just about average compared to southern European countries, but way above most of its neighbouring countries.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#127It's crazy seeing the numbers in Hong Kong and South Korea in the last couple of weeks and have been wondering if and when Omicron would eventually make its way into China.
I would imagine the Chinese health authorities to be very nervous at the moment. Currently in Hong Kong and most people seem to be more concerned about the inconvenience that comes with a positive test than the risk.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#128Crazy that every nation other than china has had 3 big “waves” of Covid cases. Yet somehow china has only had the initial wave of Covid back in early 2020 and nothing else until now. Very strange.
Not when you look at the restrictions imposed on citizens, there are comments here about office blocks being locked down for 48hrs and everyone tested. Plus all the regional lockdowns where people were forced to stay indoors that were reported widely in western media.
China could simply deal with a virus like COVID-19 far better than the west. They have the political environment for it (more authoritarian), and a society more willing to make sacrifices for the "common good".
Personally I would take western democracy/freedoms over an ideal COVID-19 response, but there is no reason to think it didn't work like that in China.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#129Earlier 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…
I live in New Zealand, we’re basically letting COVID rip now. At least we were lucky enough to get to a high vaccination rate before Omicron started, it’s super infectious. I got it despite 3 vaccinations and always masking up outside with KN95. But very mild which I guess was the point. Because of the many lockdowns before, this was the strategy of the government, any more lockdowns would guarantee change of governm…
Also furthering the COVID Zero policy while participating in the global economy is just not feasible now. If every country did what New Zealand did, we would have stomped out this virus the same way we did SARS. I'm sorry that we didn't. But now that major economic zones like Europe and the Americas are taking a "treat COVID like the flu" approach, countries like New Zealand and Taiwan need to choose between following suit or committing to perpetual, never-ending isolation.
Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown
#130Earlier 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…
I live in New Zealand, we’re basically letting COVID rip now. At least we were lucky enough to get to a high vaccination rate before Omicron started, it’s super infectious. I got it despite 3 vaccinations and always masking up outside with KN95. But very mild which I guess was the point. Because of the many lockdowns before, this was the strategy of the government, any more lockdowns would guarantee change of governm…
> we’re basically letting COVID rip now
This is the way.
Vaccinate the population as much as possible, then pursue super immunity for what's to come via exposure to this luckily less severe and highly contagious variant while the vaccines are still potent.