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The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

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Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#21

Post by dougmwne »

jaqalopes wrote: post #8

I lived in Shanghai for 5 years and have many friends and business connects there. I would never, ever want to be seen as carrying water for the CCP--the day they abolished term limits for Xi was the day I started planning my exit. I've been following this situation for almost a month now and in one sense it's every bit as bad as it looks. An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhap…

Thank you for your take on this. My reaction is that you are of course right that this is not affecting everyone equally. Certainly the CCP is not starving out all 26 million people in Shanghai. But I think this is the exact fear most of us have of authoritarian governments, that minority voices get silenced or worse and that justice is not equally distributed.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#23

Post by dougmwne »

memish wrote: post #15

Why are they still pursuing Zero Covid? I know the article includes some speculation on this, but what's the best explanation?

As near I can tell it is an arbitrary decision of an authoritarian government that is too deep into sunk cost to reverse course.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#24

Post by ahmedalsudani »

memish wrote: post #15

Why are they still pursuing Zero Covid? I know the article includes some speculation on this, but what's the best explanation?

- lower natural immunity rates because zero COVID had been successful

- lower vaccination rates

- vaccine drives prioritized the young and healthy (the idea being they can handle side effects so this seemed like the best way to achieve herd immunity)

- the newer strains are super infectious and would overwhelm the healthcare system

They don't have a good way out now. They should have used the time they got last year to buy MRNA vaccines, but they did not.

The central government has likely given up on zero COVID but are sticking with those policies for now to "flatten the curve" while this wave takes its course.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#25

Post by BobbyJo »

Cookingboy wrote: post #12
ceejayoz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China tried to actively cover up the infection in Wuhan. News got out, doctors posted on social media, video on Reddit showed people dying in the streets. China's great at suppressing protests, but informationally they're still porous. If millions of Chinese were dying of COVID, we'd know it. If suppressing information about deaths worked as well as you're asserting, they wouldn't have to publicly lock down Shanghai,…

>China tried to actively cover up the infection in Wuhan. News got out, doctors posted on social media A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid timeline showed that to be false. >video on Reddit showed people dying in the streets. That was literally just a drunk guy falling on street. Covid doesn't just make people drop dead while walking on the street lol. America suffered a million Covid deaths and we have…

>> China tried to actively cover up the infection in Wuhan. News got out, doctors posted on social media

> A simple visit to the Wikipedia article on Covid timeline showed that to be false.

Link to where it shows that to be false? Wikipedia leaving out a detail in a summary is not falsifying evidence.

Also: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/technology/china-coronavirus-censorship.amp.html

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#26

Post by LorenPechtel »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #9
rjbwork wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it is difficult to trust anything coming out of the Chinese regime, especially if it has the potential to make them look bad.

It would also be very difficult to cover up the scale of sickness / death if COVID had run as as it has elsewhere.

Exactly. Since the original event China has responded to Covid with aggressive ring-fencing. That can't be hidden--while there is room to fudge the numbers a little bit there could not have been a massive cover-up.

Also, what we have been seeing for the last weeks should make it obvious China wasn't hiding it--because we are seeing how China responds when it is there.

Unfortunately, China is stuck in zero-Covid mode when they aren't able to actually accomplish that against the infectiveness of Omicron. It's like the cartoon character flailing trying to grab something while they've already run off the cliff--except they're killing people in the process.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#27

Post by johnny22 »

aaa_aaa wrote: post #20
Retric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of studies showed lockdowns worked. The long term impact on COVID in vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations has eroded how deadly people perceive COVID. Estimates vary especially around secondary effects like hospitals being overcrowded, but cumulatively lockdowns in the US saved in the low millions of lives. “The study found that from March through August 2020, implementing widespread lockdowns and other miti…

Quoted post unavailable.

of course lockdowns would be terrible. Who's arguing that they wouldn't be? Few of the supporters of lockdown would argue otherwise.

You can of course debate whether they were worth the cost, but if so, be explicit about it.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#28

Post by LorenPechtel »

ahmedalsudani wrote: post #24
memish wrote: post #15

Why are they still pursuing Zero Covid? I know the article includes some speculation on this, but what's the best explanation?

- lower natural immunity rates because zero COVID had been successful - lower vaccination rates - vaccine drives prioritized the young and healthy (the idea being they can handle side effects so this seemed like the best way to achieve herd immunity) - the newer strains are super infectious and would overwhelm the healthcare system They don't have a good way out now. They should have used the time they got last year…

Yup. Failure is going to come at a horrendous price--I wouldn't be surprised at a 7-figure death toll. They're desperately clinging to hope even though containment has obviously failed.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#29

Post by godelski »

jaqalopes wrote: post #8

I lived in Shanghai for 5 years and have many friends and business connects there. I would never, ever want to be seen as carrying water for the CCP--the day they abolished term limits for Xi was the day I started planning my exit. I've been following this situation for almost a month now and in one sense it's every bit as bad as it looks. An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhap…

> That said, as far as I can tell it's a very unevenly distributed disaster.

I think this is one of the big issues with covid overall, especially how we discuss it over the internet. It is very possible that there is a person where everyone they know around them got covid as well as another person may only know one or two people who got it and only had mild cases. There's an extremely disproportionate distribution when it comes to things like viruses but I think our natural tendency is to believe things are more uniform.

Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible. Even zero deaths. I understand the want to minimize (especially in an area with high population densities), but zero is an impossible number.

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