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Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

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Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#111
post #85

I'm in the lockdown in Shanghai, feel free to ask me any questions. Things you read on the internet is mostly true (but may be exaggerated): Life: Yes we can only buy food through WeChat groups to organise wholesale deliveries (2000 eggs, 200 cabbages minimum order) on hiked prices, but it's easier than you might think; No one has died from starvation (yet), but there had been a few cases of death due to not getting…

What about poor people or people not on WeChat? I’m inclined to guess that your remote job isn’t representative of many people in the city. The videos of people moaning and screaming from their balconies at night seem… shocking?

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#112
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? A three-dose regimen of Pfizer or Moderna pitted against Omicron is 75% effective against infection and 88% effective against severe disease: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/by-the-numbers-covid-... Sinovac wasn't great against the original strain, but against Omicron, Sinovac is basically worthless. A two-dose regimen provides literally no benefit, and three doses is only equivalen…

Your claim isn't borne out by Hong Kong's case fatality rate numbers, which are broken down here by age range, vaccine type and # of doses: https://mobile.twitter.com/tripperhead/status/15124203942710... . Note that Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection (CHP) has consistently been way ahead of any other public health establishment in tracking and responding to COVID; they launched on-arrival rapid testing in March…

The report you're linking to starts from Dec 31, when Delta was still widely circulating (and which had much higher fatality rates, further compounding issues with a raw measurement of "case fatality" for COVID-19). It doesn't attempt to isolate performance against specific strains, unlike the Yale research, which does. It's also a biased sample, since the Pfizer vaccine ("Comirnaty") isn't approved in China, so the people who have it are likely significantly different in many respects from those who got Sinovac ("CoronaVac"). The unvaccinated groups are also likely a biased sample. It's a raw data dump: useful if you have nothing else, but we have peer reviewed research that does attempt to correct for those kinds of flaws on exactly this topic.

If you think I'm being "misleading," here's a direct quote from Yale statement: "However, those [Sinovac] vaccinations alone are of no help against the widely circulating omicron variant, shows a new study by researchers at Yale and the Dominican Republic. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine.

An analysis of blood serum from 101 individuals from the Dominican Republic showed that omicron infection produced no neutralizing antibodies among those who received the standard two-shot regimen of the Sinovac vaccine.

...

But when researchers compared these samples with blood serum samples stored at Yale, they found that even those who had received two Sinovac shots and a booster had antibody levels that were only about the same as those who’d received two shots of the mRNA vaccines but no booster shot."

That's pretty much exactly what I posted! So no, I don't think I'm being misleading.

Regardless, even if you suppose the entire HK dataset is 100% Omicron cases, and ignore the sample biases, it's still pretty poor compared to Pfizer; the OP claimed they were roughly the same, which I was refuting.

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#113

This shows the fragility of big cities. People who live in a big city are highly dependent on the government and the economy. Cities don't produce much food themselves so it has to be brought in from other parts of the country every day. Shanghai has 24 million people; it's difficult to conceptualize how much food is required to sustain so many people. I find big cities terrifying. What if there is a food shortage or…

If anything it shows the fragility of having someone point a gun into your head forbidding you to go get food If for whatever other reason you'd live in a remote area and the government used force to stop you from getting food in whatever way, the exact same thing would happen, as it already did in Ukraine (holodomor hunger) where you have one of the most fertile grounds on the planet

> the exact same thing would happen

People in Shanghai are completely unable to produce their own food, with many not stocking even a bag of rice.

Meanwhile, there's plenty of rural areas that can produce family-sized amounts of eggs, milk, fruits, and veggies to survive on indefinitely should the government decide to blockade you.

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#115
post #102
post #85

I'm in the lockdown in Shanghai, feel free to ask me any questions. Things you read on the internet is mostly true (but may be exaggerated): Life: Yes we can only buy food through WeChat groups to organise wholesale deliveries (2000 eggs, 200 cabbages minimum order) on hiked prices, but it's easier than you might think; No one has died from starvation (yet), but there had been a few cases of death due to not getting…

A lot of your commentary is about lockdown not being too bad, but what are your thoughts on the rationale for the lockdown when Omicron is relatively less dangerous? Do the people in your social network feel the costs are worth it?

There are definitely lots of complains: the consequences on the economy, not able to travel, etc. On a personal level everyone is affected, but is the lockdown worth it? On a country level I think it's understandable. Shanghai is a city of 25m population and it has one of the best medical system in China, if COVID cannot be contained in Shanghai then it'll be a nightmare to spread to other cities, towns and villages, where basic medical care is still not readily available. Shanghai is also the economic and financial centre of China, locking it down definitely comes at a great cost to the country, so I don't think the government has made this decision lightly. If Omicron is really like a cold/flu then no it's not worth it, but do we know this for sure?

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#116
post #99
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about parents with kids? Everyone stuck doing virtual school and work in tiny apartments?

Schools are closed, and for good reasons. If I'm the parent I wouldn't want my kids to get COVID. The gospel of online education may be coming true? Jokes aside, it's not as miserable as many people may think.

> If I'm the parent I wouldn't want my kids to get COVID

The risks of missing education, physical activity and socialization are far greater for children than Covid. We have two years of data to show this.

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#117
post #85

I'm in the lockdown in Shanghai, feel free to ask me any questions. Things you read on the internet is mostly true (but may be exaggerated): Life: Yes we can only buy food through WeChat groups to organise wholesale deliveries (2000 eggs, 200 cabbages minimum order) on hiked prices, but it's easier than you might think; No one has died from starvation (yet), but there had been a few cases of death due to not getting…

What about poor people or people not on WeChat? I’m inclined to guess that your remote job isn’t representative of many people in the city. The videos of people moaning and screaming from their balconies at night seem… shocking?

Absolutely, I don't represent everyone. I'm sure there are people losing their income because they cannot go to work. The government - which has enforced the lockdown, should definitely do a better job in caring for the individuals who are the most affected, no doubt in that.

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#118
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools are closed, and for good reasons. If I'm the parent I wouldn't want my kids to get COVID. The gospel of online education may be coming true? Jokes aside, it's not as miserable as many people may think.

> If I'm the parent I wouldn't want my kids to get COVID The risks of missing education, physical activity and socialization are far greater for children than Covid. We have two years of data to show this.

It's not a permanent lockdown... just for a few weeks (so far)

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#119
post #8

There's no point in doing this, COVID will spread until everyone gets it at least once. You just want to slow it down not to overwhelm hospitals and that it's. And if you immunize everyone there's very few hospitalizations. Just make vaccines available - you don't even need to mandate them, most people will take them, and that's good enough.

You mean until everyone gets it again, and again (and again). We don't know the long terms effects of even a single infection, let alone the repeated infections we're allowing ourselves to be exposed to.

Probably a similar risk profile to that of every other common respiratory virus…

Re: Trapped in lockdown, Shanghai residents turn to WeChat groups for food

#120
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID is pretty much over, lockdowns and mask mandates are being lifted around the free world. However authoritarian governments will likely continue to use it as a lame excuse for years to come.

You mean our fight against Covid is pretty much over - and has ended with complete capitulation. We are now letting it do as it will, for better or for worse - surrendering to our fate.

What was the alternative?
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