An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown • Hacker News Board

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#201

Post by dirtyid » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:16 PM UTC

asats wrote: post #191

mike_h wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly that logic doesn’t work here, though it’s tempting. There’s a portion of the population that refused vaccines, due to a combination of factors including misinformation. Omicron going wild would put millions of elderly people into the hospitals, jamming up the healthcare system and leading to millions more excess deaths.

So what is the endgame here? Covid is not going away. Does that mean that China will become an isolated island with waves of lockdowns for the next decades?

Force elders to vax. Build up antiviral stockpile. Maybe wait for milder strain. Roll out phased living with covid experiments by region. Take a few extra years to spare millions of deaths.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#202

Post by rtpg » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #61

rtpg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talks about how magic money doesn’t exist but then printing out checks for everyone and it materially helping loads of people was definitely an Overton window shifter as well. There are principles and a status quo, and it always stays the same… until it changes.

There was no magic money tree. It took a while for the effects to spread to the whole of the economy - perhaps because people were in lockdown and limited in their ability to spend money - but throughout the western world people's incomes have been dropping in real inflation-adjusted terms. There's no way that they couldn't; a large chunk of the economy was shut down and producing nothing, so there's just plain less…

$2000 one time checks are not what is causing inflation. Extended unemployment insurance... I doubt it.

Inflation right now is happening because logistics are messed up. Yeah, turns out that when things get messy then the price of things go up, cuz it's harder to get things done.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#203

Post by fabian2k » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

Canada wrote: post #187

mike_h wrote: post #161

I’m in Shanghai too. It’s a city of 25+ million people: there will be some bad stories. But overall it is running remarkably and the vast majority of people aren’t thinking about how oppressed they are by having to eat fish. They’re helping each other and encouraging each other, because they know the cost of not doing this is millions of lives.

Really? How come it didn't cost millions of lives elsewhere that didn't impose such strict rules?

The number of confirmed COVID deaths in the US is almost a million, so "millions" doesn't seem that much of a stretch for a much larger country like China. Of course this is not directly comparable because the number of deaths depends on vaccination status and age demographics.

And other countries with fewer deaths have higher vaccination rates. China has the problem of both, low vaccination rates in the risk populations and worse vaccines than the mRNA ones.

But lockdowns can't work forever, I don't see how this is sustainable without dramatically increasing vaccination rates and getting better vaccines. Lockdowns only gain you time, you still have to do something useful with that time.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#204

Post by cloutchaser » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

asats wrote: post #191

mike_h wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly that logic doesn’t work here, though it’s tempting. There’s a portion of the population that refused vaccines, due to a combination of factors including misinformation. Omicron going wild would put millions of elderly people into the hospitals, jamming up the healthcare system and leading to millions more excess deaths.

So what is the endgame here? Covid is not going away. Does that mean that China will become an isolated island with waves of lockdowns for the next decades?

If that’s what suits the party best, probably. Communist dictatorships aren’t known for very rational policies when they need to save face on something.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#205

Post by simonh » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

ascar wrote: post #194

simonh wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wet nurses need to be already lactating mothers, not just any woman. Also in a strict lockdown how are you going to get a wet nurse to visit you?

From GP comment it sounded like there are multiple mom's with infants in the building and statistically most of them should be breastfeeding. So if I run out of formula another mom is probably the best solution to not let my baby starve.

Sure, that's fair enough.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#206

Post by smcl » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

somewhereoutth wrote: post #178

smcl wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation in Shanghai sounds pretty far from an ideal society, it sounds downright horrifying

Certainly it is awful in Shanghai right now, but it will be for a limited time period, and the benefits (of zero Covid) will out weigh this cost of this investment in public health.

I would say that in an ideal society you do not get suddenly locked down wherever you happen to be with no notice and no way to return to take care of pets or loved ones. Additionally said ideal society would not send me off to some covid hospital and kill my dog if I tested positive. I backed the mild but effective lockdowns we had and defended them when people called them dystopian or said they were worse than Covid. I cannot get behind these lockdowns in China, they are dystopian and I cannot fathom your sunny disposition towards them

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#207

Post by kcb » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

somewhereoutth wrote: post #156

xienze wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/ Find me another country on earth whose numbers look even remotely like this.

It is a testament to the effectiveness of a zero Covid policy rigorously applied. Taiwan has similar figures. Could have been us too!

Heck yea! Locked in our houses for weeks by the authority! A great idea!

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#208

Post by pmontra » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

mike_h wrote: post #192

gitfan86 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/shanghai-official-says-h... Things don't get better from here.

Sounds like they’re only advocating incremental improvements to the current policy? Compare China death rates over the pandemic to basically anywhere else. If saving 5-10 million lives (estimated based on % of US population lost to Covid) doesn’t count as working, what would?

Of course nobody wants to die before their time and perhaps after one month in ICU but a country the size of China has about 10 million deaths every year (1% of 1 billion.) I wasn't happy to be locked down for 2 months in a much milder way than the people in Shanghai. I'd really change country if my country had a Chinese approach to virus containment because it's going to be a really bad decade. Until China needs their people to work all the time no matter what, then covid will be banned and forgotten.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#209

Post by csee » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

Laforet wrote: post #169

csee wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they just clandestinely ramp up their elderly vaccination efforts? No face will be lost.

They are already doing that and it will take some time. However no vaccine is 100% effective against mortality. Bear in mind that China had almost no covid deaths post-2020. Any covid death now is considered a failure as it would have been "preventable" under a strictly zero covid policy. This is why the figures out of China is looking too good to be true right now with 150K+ recent cases, very low intensive care adm…

> They are already doing that and it will take some time.

Really? The data I've seen (googling and on social media) suggest that there is no change in the vaccination rate.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#210

Post by refurb » Sat, Apr 09, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #145

Kind of crazy how sentimental and emotional the response is with barely any actual discussion going on about the merits of this on a grand scale. Yes, stories about people's dogs and temporary economic depression are awful. The larger picture is that China by pursuing these policies has stopped millions of deaths, probably tens of millions of cases of long term disabilities, and overall kept the economy going. It's w…

In the end China will fail at its zero Covid strategy (just as many other Asian countries did - like Vietnam). It’s already spread to other cities and Shanghai will never hit zero cases again. But, due to ego and national pride will do immense economic and social harm to its population that is likely disproportion to the harm it would have gotten from Covid (its population is already vaccinated and Sinovax is still pretty effective despite not being as effective as mRNA).

What will be interesting is the political upheaval this will cause. The CCP will have to admit defeat at some point but will do it’s best to spin it as a win. There will be scapegoats and some political careers will end.