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An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

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Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#231

Post by charlieyu1 »

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…

There are definitely suicides in lockdown, old people dying because of being refused entry to hospitals, starving etc. If you’re taking in account of weak fatality of Omicron I’m not sure which decision would have caused more deaths.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#232

Post by nazgul17 »

russellbeattie wrote: post #136

The lockdown is cruel and extreme, but it will save many more lives than anything less drastic. China understands the threat and isn't fucking around with the response. They're not locking down the country's economic engine for fun, or (according to the article) to save face. Thinking that is both racist and childish. They're doing it to save lives. This guy is caught in the middle, and I feel for him, but he's too c…

Since covid is a highly transmissible disease, if you pursue a zero covid policy while not being an island, you're in for never ending pain.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#233

Post by somewhereoutth »

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?

Could be - and that may be a better outcome than the waves of infections that the rest of us will suffer for the next decades.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#234

Post by tangsanqian »

As a Chinese, I can say that the situation is worse than it in the article. My brother is a student who lives in a flat and has not eaten for two days and no one has brought basic substances. He can't leave the flat, he turns to his tutor but his tutor is also forced to stay at home (eating instant noodles every day). We are worried about him but there is nothing we can do, if we criticise the government on chinese Twitter we will be arrested by the police. ಥ_ಥ

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#235

Post by Mattasher »

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…

The merits of putting 16 million people under indefinite house arrest in tiny apartments, depriving them of fresh air, exercise, real social interaction, medical care, access to food, etc?

I'm not sure if you understand just how deeply sociopathic and disturbed you come across.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#236

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

pmontra wrote: post #208
mike_h wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> I'd really change country if my country had a Chinese approach to virus containment

No you wouldn't. You'd be locked down in your apartment. Also, your social rating would not permit you to use means of transportation.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#237

Post by cloutchaser »

roenxi wrote: post #107
Gigachad wrote: post #40

Hard to verify the source of the video but there is one going around reddit right now showing mass suicides from people jumping out of high rise windows. Claimed to be people in lockdown in Shanghai.

Shanghai has a population larger than most countries. There are a lot of extreme stories every day in Shanghai. That has to be considered when talking about "mass" anything, even when putting aside the high likelihood of a misleading video.

Funnily enough I don’t recall mass suicide videos from any other city on earth?

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#238

Post by charlieyu1 »

mike_h wrote: post #173
kyrra wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China also likely lies about their numbers so it's not likely we'd know the real death count. According to their stats, they had covid 4 covid deaths in all of 2021. This puts them at the number 2 best results spot. The issue here being that all the top stats spots for least deaths are from island countries, which china is not.

China is on Earth, not in some other solar system. If their excess deaths per capita were a fraction of the numbers in the West, there would be no way to hide it.

Hong Kong have 1.1 million reported cases while the whole China have only 160K. Yes it is totally believable

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#239

Post by gitfan86 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #226
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.

So your point is that things cannot improve when they are bad because no one can voice a contrarian view, but your evidence that things are bad is Shanghai's vice-mayor advocating contrarian views?

My point is that the only way for China to contain Omicron is to increase lockdown measures to the point that many people are dying due to lack of food and healthcare. The alternative is to abandon CovidZero policies completely and go the path of heard immunity. And in China you are not allowed to express those facts, because it means the leaders were wrong to promote CovidZero.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#240

Post by smcl »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #230

"This makes this whole lockdown feel drenched in identity politics, because letting go of zero covid forces China to also let go of that narrative." Not identity politics - perhaps national pride, but certainly not identity politics. Shame the author raises this 'dog whistle' in this otherwise credible article.

The author writes well in English but it is clear English isn't their first language, it's entirely likely they were just using a term they've heard a few times and thought was right and weren't trying to dogwhistle (not sure what they would be dogwhistling even if they were)
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