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An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

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Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#301

Post by csee »

88840-8855 wrote: post #176
csee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hard lockdown being needed at this late stage in the pandemic signals poor decision making more than anything. Why aren't their elderly widely vaccinated, and why are they still relying on their significantly worse domestically made vaccine?

They are not vaccinated because they did not want. i am wondering about your question.

China wouldn't be in this mess if they had followed New Zealand's approach of vaccinating all the old people with a high quality vaccine. Then you can just open up again because the mortality risk of Covid is the same as the annual flu (according to data out of the UK).

In a country with complete control over the information ecosystem, how can it be that so many old Chinese people don't want to take the vaccine? Is anti-vax sentiment the main reason for low vaccination rates among old people in China compared to New Zealand?

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#302

Post by baka367 »

tangsanqian wrote: post #234

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 T…

me and my wife (we live in Suzhou) actually talked that if this happens to our city, it might actually become worth to "cause trouble" and get arrested, hoping that there would be some food given in the police station. Its ridiculous how dystopian such conversations have become recently...

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#303

Post by dirtyid »

drumhead wrote: post #283
dirtyid wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western mrna vaccine proven equally useless at preventing spread which overwhelms underdeveloped PRC medical system. Living with covid wasn't a choice after vaccines failed 1 of 2 epidimeology goals. Second being preventing severe disease which Chinese vaccines are almost as good at. Covid zero is simply superior to depending on vaccines if it can be maintained.

They've worked spectacularly well at preventing death. It means health systems arent being overwhelmed even when the disease is infecting people at record levels. Chinese vaccines may not have been particularly effective so that why China has to rely on lockdowns again even for Omicron, but other countries that have mRNA vaccines are virtually back to normal now.

PRC vaccines work almost as well on severe cases. The significant advantange of mRNA was preventing breakthrough/spread which is has failed post delta, ergo countries resign to living with covid exposing all those who can't/won't vaccinate to risk - because they're systemically incapable of executing more effective lockdowns. These health systems aren't being overwhelmed _anymore_ because they spent 2 years spreading out cases load on more developed medical systems. PRC is relying on periodic lockdowns like it always has because it's fundementally more effective than vaccines at preventing deaths especially relatively to largely uninfected population. In the mean time most of the country has been back to normal since April 2020. mRNA wank is suggesting handing everyone bullet proof vests is better than just preventing mass shootings in the first place.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#304

Post by alisonatwork »

gerbilly wrote: post #146

It seems like condos and apartments can easily be turned into prisons. I'm glad I live in a house, even if it is in north america.

I lived in an urban village in China during the 2020 lockdowns and literally overnight the authorities erected 6+ foot high fences around my whole neighborhood. Entry and exit to the newly-minted gated community was funneled through two checkpoints that never existed prior to COVID. Authorities were actively patrolling the streets checking ID and ensuring nobody jumped the fence. If an authoritarian government wants to restrict the movements of their population badly enough, they will find a way.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#305

Post by usaar333 »

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 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.

Alright, so if we go by Shanghai's own reporting (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-61043346), there's been 130k infections of which one person is in "severe condition" and no deaths. Even assuming that severe condition becomes a death, you are looking at a 1 in 100k death rate, which puts a ceiling of ~230 deaths in Shanghai and 13k across the entire country - a fraction of what you are claiming is possible. It's possible Shanghai is falsifying their data to look better, but such falsification actually just makes the lockdown look even dumber from an ROI standpoint.

Meanwhile, the lockdown itself is clearly causing deaths directly (https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/shanghai-hospital-pa...). Even ignoring that, ~2,300 QALY saved from city-wide covid deaths is far outweighed by the "quality of life" lost in a single day of lockdown (63k QALY by my calculation). At this point, of the lockdown, the lockdown is 10x if not 100x costlier than just letting the virus rip through the population.

If you don't buy the Shanghai numbers, you can use other country's modeling which suggests Omicron in a vaccinated population is a bit less severe than seasonal flu. Obviously, we don't lock down every year to avoid seasonal flu as the ROI is terrible.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#306

Post by jhbadger »

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.

People are still arguing how many people died in the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961. Some say as low as 15 million others as high as 50 million. It's easy to hide millions of deaths in authoritarian regimes.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#307

Post by anonu »

pnw wrote: post #297

Newsflash: communism sucks.

We can also generalize: Dictatorial regimes suck.

For all the gnashing, grinding, complaining, partisan politics in the USA over COVID policies, I think the USA came out alright. The detractors will say the USA failed. That 1m people died. A tragedy for sure and maybe a portion of those deaths would have been avoidable had we had better messaging from the Trump regime. But net result we have our freedoms intact. The USA is on a quick road to recovery economically. We've avoided a depression and unemployment is fairly low.

It's not perfect... By far. But at least this is not Shanghai.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#308

Post by baybal2 »

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…

[dead]

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#309

Post by newbamboo »

thisiscorrect wrote: post #300
chasd00 wrote: post #285

With omicron isn’t a zero Covid policy a fools errand? As the virus mutates into ever more infectious variants a zero-Covid policy becomes impossibe.

Yes. But it was also a fool's errand before omicron. Has there ever been a recorded instance of eliminating a respiratory infection before?

SARS #1? That’s just one example.

Re: An Account of the Shanghai Lockdown

#310

Post by 8f9acd32 »

treeman79 wrote: post #116
mensetmanusman wrote: post #112

A high school friend of ours is apartment-jailed in Shanghai right now. She is a young mom, and all the moms in the apartment are all out of everything required to care for babies. Trying to share strategies on how to use any kitchen ingredients to make formula or rash ointments… I wonder if this will actually have any political blowback in the coming years, or if this only strengthens the ccp.

Complaining is against the party. China makes use of people who complain to much https://nypost.com/2022/04/07/researchers-claim-chinese-surg...

That's terrifying :( and incredibly sad for anyone who ends up in that position and China as a people.

Can someone explain the downvotes? This is HN not the CCP, we demand action to be backed up with reason. The article suggested "political prisoners" to be included in those ending being killed by organ harvesting, so it seems relevant to the parent's comment:

> Robertson claims surgeons operated on death-row prisoners and “prisoners of conscience”, which could include political prisoners

[edit]

Votes seem to have changed. That's not helped my fear of being monitored :/

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