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Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#221

Post by BossingAround »

mrintellectual wrote: post #4

I can sympathize with your situation. I was in an office building in Shanghai last November when it got locked down for 48 hours - nobody in or out. Everybody ended up ordering takeout, and the entire building had to be tested for COVID a total of four times. The most insane part is that they don't even let you take pictures of the lockdown (I almost got my phone confiscated by the police for taking pictures). Also,…

Did someone need any pills? As a person that takes medication daily, this would be extremely painful for me.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#222

Post by 1_player »

dragonsh wrote: post #196
ChemSpider wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"once they realize Omicron isn’t that serious in vaccinated individuals" Afaik Sinovac is pretty much useless against Omicron.

Quoted post unavailable.

Do we need to have a vaccine contrarian every damn thread posted on this forum and anywhere else on the Internet? We as a society have been over this for 2 years, and every time it's the same ignorant arguments that keep being debunked, and like clockwork every time there's someone ready to voice their pet opinion about the pandemic that goes against any research and common sense.

It's like the hellish version of xkcd's lucky 10,000. I guess it was your turn today.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#223

Post by rsync »

Anecdote: we have a Hong Kong location (hkcolo, TKO) and suddenly, in the last 2-3 weeks we are seeing email notifications about positive tests and exposures and contact alerts at the datacenter.

This is new. They were not having these positive test results nor having these exposures at any time prior.

From the outside (thank god) it appears that c19 is running through HK much faster than at any point prior …

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#224

Post by cersa8 »

sundvor wrote: post #214
maxerickson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 3rd shot of the mRNA vaccine clearly does reduce infection from Omicron somewhat (I would call it more than useless for that effect, you can call it whatever you want). They also are still very effective at preventing severe disease (against Omicron). This is the opposite of useless.

Can confirm triple Pfeizer rendered what I assume was Omicron to something relatively mild for this non drinking, normal BMI near 50s male. Getting Covid still made me feel rather rubbish for a few days. Kudos and my personal thanks to the vaccine developers.

For almost everyone, vaccinated or not, Omicron is a minor nuisance. Somehow everyone seems to claim they have minor symptoms because they got vaccinated. This is human psychology 101 as it validates your decision for getting vaccinated.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#226

Post by strogonoff »

rtpg wrote: post #219
strogonoff wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentive for citizens is a threat of their entire city block or rural area being literally locked; possibly social karma consequences (your fault for not complying with PPE measures). For local officials, the threat of losing their jobs because there is no telling if upper management will decide you should be replaced if you report unpleasant facts that violate national point of pride (zero COVID), and everyone…

I think you have identified good incentives, though I believe that in practice what we have seen is local officials being punished for hiding the facts from the top part of the gov't more than anything (the narrative could go both ways). But I think you are confusing China for North Korea a bit here. Loads of people (including people who have basically zero interactions with foreigners) have VPNs, and access to outsi…

It’s not people around you dying in bunches. This is not some sort of plague or the first SARS.

You live in a village. You are a regular guy or girl strongly interested in your life not becoming suddenly worse. You know a friend whose old grandpa recently died. He smoked, like almost all grandpas do. Are you seriously going to press your friend as to whether her grandpa was infected with COVID? Do you think grandpa chose to go get tested, knowing they could possibly undermine the entire village if their case gets reported up? And if your friend confides in you that her grandpa might have had COVID, would you go around posting how your village deceived the authorities?

Now scale this according to China’s population and territory. This can plausibly be happening all over outside of big cities and no one on the ground would notice anything out of ordinary. Add to that people existing entirely outside of the system, without access to healthcare and so on.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#227

Post by long_time_gone »

throwaway290 wrote: post #202
interpenetrate wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don't work for CCP so I don't know why they do stuff, but the fact that they routinely provide false information is very extensively documented. Come back when you think of an excuse to trust their data without verification.

> Come back when you think of an excuse to trust their data without verification.

Your entire premise is based on a straw man. Nobody is blindly accepting China’s data as gospel, they are saying that it’s the only data we have.

You have presented nothing but innuendo.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#228

Post by native_samples »

1_player wrote: post #222
dragonsh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Do we need to have a vaccine contrarian every damn thread posted on this forum and anywhere else on the Internet? We as a society have been over this for 2 years, and every time it's the same ignorant arguments that keep being debunked, and like clockwork every time there's someone ready to voice their pet opinion about the pandemic that goes against any research and common sense. It's like the hellish version of xkc…

Yes, we do, because the contrarians are correct, again. Just like they were in 2020 when everyone arguing that lockdowns weren't working were getting downvoted to hell and yelled at for "disinformation", just like when they pointed out that the models were based on stupid assumptions and that mask mandates weren't having any observable effect.

The vaccines are useless against Omicron. They don't stop people getting it. They appear to make no difference to severity (it was 25% vaxxed South Africa that pointed out everyone getting it had mild symptoms). That is a stone cold fact.

Indeed it appears to actually be the opposite - the UK, one of the only countries that publishes actual case rate data (instead of TNCC positivity ratio comparisons), shows that people who are vaccinated get Omicron at a much higher rate than those who aren't. The cause is probably an immune priming/training effect. That data is real though, it's not something you can make disappear by throwing a hissy fit when someone points it out.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#229

Post by narrator »

The level of control of people in China is only made possible by their huge use of AI.

George Soros complained about AI in China and it's political ramifications there in a recent speech at Stanford in January that went over this and other topics in U.S China relations. Below is an excerpt. Btw, this is his official site with the whole speech transcript.

https://www.georgesoros.com/2022/01/31/george-soros-on-china...

" In theory, AI is morally and ethically neutral; it can be used for good or bad. But in practice, its effect is asymmetric.

AI is particularly good at producing instruments of control that help repressive regimes and endanger open societies. Interestingly, the Coronavirus reinforced the advantage repressive regimes enjoy by legitimizing the use of personal data for public control purposes.

With these advantages, one might think that Xi Jinping, who collects personal data for the surveillance of his citizens more aggressively than any other ruler in history, is bound to be successful. He certainly thinks so, and many people believe him. "

Anyway, it's a good one to read in full when thinking about the future of AI and how it will interact with society and government.

Re: Tell HN: China Is Entering Lockdown

#230

Post by maxerickson »

cersa8 wrote: post #224
sundvor wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm triple Pfeizer rendered what I assume was Omicron to something relatively mild for this non drinking, normal BMI near 50s male. Getting Covid still made me feel rather rubbish for a few days. Kudos and my personal thanks to the vaccine developers.

For almost everyone, vaccinated or not, Omicron is a minor nuisance. Somehow everyone seems to claim they have minor symptoms because they got vaccinated. This is human psychology 101 as it validates your decision for getting vaccinated.

"Almost everyone" always does a lot of work in statements like that.

It's bizarre to call out the "decision to get vaccinated", as if it is something people should be uncomfortable with, having spent a bit of time getting a vaccine that is clearly safer than the illness it protects against.

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