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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

#51

Post by whimsicalism »

godelski wrote: post #29
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 wh…

> Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible.

It worked for original SARS, no?

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#52

Post by godelski »

whimsicalism wrote: post #51
godelski wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

> Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible. It worked for original SARS, no?

Not really. There's also a lot of differences, like SARS didn't escape to be a global pandemic. I'd say that's a big difference. At this point zero covid is like trying to create a zero flu policy. That's very different from a zero measles policy.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#53

Post by whimsicalism »

rrsmtz wrote: post #50
whimsicalism wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

"We" didn't kill anybody, they died of a highly transmissible and novel disease for which there was no cure and no vaccine for over a year. There was no possible way that death could have been completely averted. Yes, there were policy choices that could have been made differently, that would have potentially slowed the spread. We implemented many, decided not to implement others, and had a difficult time enforcing t…

> There was no possible way that death could have been averted.

Respectfully, I disagree. If there was no possible way to avert it, how did China avert the vast majority of equivalent deaths?

The action/omission distinction is for judging who started a fight in a schoolyard, not for judging the actions of nation-states.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#54

Post by bllguo »

kharak wrote: post #45
dqpb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An inadequate and inhumane policy being enforced by an out of touch, or perhaps even uncaring, government The inevitable result of centralized control.

That is certainly an important factor. I think it goes even deeper. China doesn't recognize human rights as we know them. The collective, represented by state interests (CCP), is above all. Hence any individual right can be sacrificed for the greater good. Aka state interests. And that's why situations like this shutdown in Shanghai can unfold. It's a deeply philosophical problem that China hasn't resolved, despite a…

> It's a deeply philosophical problem that China hasn't resolved, despite ample opportunity to learn the lesson.

What a bizarre statement. How can you simultaneously think it's a deep philosophical issue and also that there is an obvious solution?

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#55

Post by _dain_ »

sva_ wrote: post #36
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?

I find it fairly amusing that people who believe in the "lableak-hypothesis" seem to usually also be in the camp of people who don't think the virus is too bad. If the virus really came from the lab, then presumably the Chinese know more about its (long term) effects than the rest of us. And looking at the fact, that they have this zero COVID policy, that should absolutely terrify anyone believing in the aforemention…

>If the virus really came from the lab, then presumably the Chinese know more about its (long term) effects than the rest of us.

why would this be the case? any secret informational advantage they had at the start evaporated as soon as it got outside their borders. and today's virus is very different to the OG one they had in the lab before it was (presumably accidentally) leaked.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#56

Post by daenz »

johnny22 wrote: post #27
aaa_aaa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>worth the cost

It depends on how you value life and death. On one end of the spectrum, there are some people who think we should stop everything if it prevents a single death. On the other end, people who think they should be allowed to do whatever they want even if it clearly endangers others.

I don't think it's a question that the former extreme won out in most places wrt covid response.

The hard truth is that we have to put a price tag on life and death, because no matter what we do, it's going to contribute to someone's death. It's not a popular answer, but it's the only pragmatic one.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#57

Post by Cookingboy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #42
Cookingboy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande... Can you point me toward where they tried to hide the outbreak?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_Chi... > In a March 2020 interview, Ai Fen, the director of Wuhan Central Hospital's emergency department, stated in an interview that “she was told by superiors ... that Wuhan's health commission had issued a directive that medical workers were not to disclose anything about the virus, or the disease it caused, to avoid sparking a panic. > In the early stages…

Thanks, this is a good article that backed up one of the quotes: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55756452

I appreciate you bringing new info to my eyes.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#58

Post by ahmedalsudani »

AJ007 wrote: post #38
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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…

Also they have a vaccine that may not work.

It helps prevent infection and temper symptoms but it's not as effective as the mRNA vaccines.

Something like 50% vs 90% though that could be old data.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#59

Post by extheat »

sva_ wrote: post #36
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?

I find it fairly amusing that people who believe in the "lableak-hypothesis" seem to usually also be in the camp of people who don't think the virus is too bad. If the virus really came from the lab, then presumably the Chinese know more about its (long term) effects than the rest of us. And looking at the fact, that they have this zero COVID policy, that should absolutely terrify anyone believing in the aforemention…

> then presumably the Chinese know more about its (long term) effects than the rest of us

Not necessarily true. The lab in question has been known to house coronavirus variants and done bat research. SARS-cov-2 isn't the first coronavirus out of China, remember SARS-cov-1. This is not in dispute. What was in dispute is if it leaked from there or not, or spread naturally outside human error. The proximity of the lab to the first cases, the measures taken there before the known spread of the virus and their attempt to destroy information about it is what leads to speculation. We may never know what actually happened outside anecdotal information without more information from China. Given the low likelihood of it being human engineered though, we should probably still be able to trace how it evolved in nature before spreading to humans. I don't see the correlation between this and the zero-COVID policy. Labs (ethically) work with pathogens all the time, they obviously don't inject viruses into humans without substantial cause.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#60

Post by whimsicalism »

godelski wrote: post #52
whimsicalism wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I am highly confused by China's zero coivd policy. Just by the nature of how viruses work, that seems impossible. It worked for original SARS, no?

Not really. There's also a lot of differences, like SARS didn't escape to be a global pandemic. I'd say that's a big difference. At this point zero covid is like trying to create a zero flu policy. That's very different from a zero measles policy.

Why? It's worked for them for a few years now and they have successfully mitigated what would have been millions of deaths.

Your claim that it doesn't work because of the "nature of viruses" seems belied by the facts on the ground.

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