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Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

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Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#211

Post by _fat_santa »

pvarangot wrote: post #206
_fat_santa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the absolute detriment and destruction of everything else it seems. With how fast Omicron spreads, zero-covid is simply untenable these days but China is trying... The basic report is that people are starving. The government has provided food but the food situation is…

> another revolution will occur So the playbook of the CCP in cities seems to be push and push and push until the people revolt and then you cull the activists that are willing to fight by running the army through the streets and shooting everyone that's revolting. This has been a thing since Maos purges and it's the same thing they did in Hong Kong by slowly adding stupid rules until the people willing to revolt had…

IMO it's all about Xi and the other folks at the top trying to "save face" [1]. Looking it from that lens it all makes perfect sense.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#212

Post by RainaRelanah »

LinuxBender wrote: post #120
yalogin wrote: post #43

I did not realize there is such a strict lockdown even now. Somehow missed that news cycle. However that makes me wonder if the other countries in the world like India and major parts of the US even test now. I mean unless it’s absolutely clear it’s covid they probably don’t test and go on with their lives.

There are some theories posited by this youtuber [1] that suggest this has little to do with covid. I am curious what others here familiar with living in China think about this. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZHiE96tWY4 [video]

laowhy86 has made a living for many years fearmongering the west about China. It's his entire channel. Same with SerpentZA and ADV China. I've watched a lot of their content and really can't take any of it at face value anymore.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#213

Post by ars »

abeppu wrote: post #164
_fat_santa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the absolute detriment and destruction of everything else it seems. With how fast Omicron spreads, zero-covid is simply untenable these days but China is trying... The basic report is that people are starving. The government has provided food but the food situation is…

Everyone other than the Chinese government seems to agree that a zero covid policy isn't realistic anymore. And empirically, they haven't succeeded. But ... why is that the case? Why _doesn't_ an ultra-strict lockdown for this long prevent spread (and allow existing cases to resolve)? What are the remaining opportunities for it to spread? Throughout 2021, I had sort of told myself that most of the harms of the pandem…

COVID is airborne, so lockdowns in a dense city do not work.

Cleaning surfaces doesn't do anything, those plastic dividers also don't do anything.

The regular masks barely do anything. The N95 masks only work until people take them off and they eventually have to.

Vaccines only work for a short time, but they do reduce deaths because the eventual infection is not as severe.

Basically not a single thing that we did actually helped. It just made people feel better by giving them a sense of control.

The only thing that worked, in a sense, is allowing COVID to infect people and giving them natural immunity.

I say in a sense because there were deaths by following that process.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#214

Post by WalterBright »

hueyluey wrote: post #178
gfodor wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end result of Communism is always the same, but the details vary. It’s fundamentally fragile.

Why do you think it's fundamentally fragile? The soviet union lasted for about 70 years. China has had a unique party for around 70 years (and no signs of ot changing anytime soon). What other types of government are less fragile? I think democracy is more fragile for sure.

The US has lasted well over 200 years.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#215

Post by neither_color »

chamucoman wrote: post #138
electrondood wrote: post #134

How exactly is "zero-COVID" supposed to end? It seems like China are committed to extreme measures like this in perpetuity any time there is a future outbreak, which will happen.

The zero-Covid is just an excuse to manipulate the local (increasing wealth of citizens) and global (supply chain disruption) economic landscape. This should be obvious to anyone, but I guess is not, and some people still think this is about Covid.

I think that's giving them too much credit. Historically, this isn't the first time that they've enacted a long war of attrition against nature and lost. Consider their attempts to eliminate sparrows, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[9] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine.[12][13] The Chinese government eventually resorted to importing 250,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to replenish their population.[14]

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#216

Post by zardinality »

markus92 wrote: post #148
ttul wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarrely, I don’t think they have an exit strategy. They ought to be vaccinating all the holdouts, but I think the government there is afraid of a backlash if they force pensioners to roll up their sleeves.

Do they even have usable vaccines? Their Sinovac/Sinopharm vaccines were reasonably effective in preventing severe COVID in the non-elderly pre-omicron, but they don't seem to be too effective against omicron. Most countries using the Chinese vaccines had the "benefit" of having a ton of natural immunity as well. China obviously does not have this. They might seriously have to consider importing Western vaccines as b…

Sinovac is effective to omicron but only with the third booster. In contrast, Pfizer is almost as effective as sinovac with merely two shots in preventing the COVID. So the problem there first is not why they don't import Pfizer, it is why they do not even have sinovac booster.

The answer here is simple: the government do not enforce anybody to get vaccinated. No one. If you missed a corona test at 7am you might be grounded for the rest of week, but if you don't get any vaccine nobody cares. I got two shots of Pfizer not recorded in China, and no one comes to my place like when they want to test you.

Plus there are sporadic side symptoms getting a shot, like arm sore and allergy, some even last to now. Plus plus, for most of people they don't see virus around. So the incentive is zero.

You probably don't have to right to travel freely, but you have the right to not get an injection in China. FWIW.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#217

Post by cyberlurker »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #87
_fat_santa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the absolute detriment and destruction of everything else it seems. With how fast Omicron spreads, zero-covid is simply untenable these days but China is trying... The basic report is that people are starving. The government has provided food but the food situation is…

Damn, if only China was this strict about its lab safety.

1. This shouldn't be flagged, it is important that we discuss lab safety as it might be the cause of the pandemic. It might also not be and we will likely never know but it is still important to discuss.

2. Not just China, all countries have abysmal lab safety. This is the most important point. This is not a solely Chinese issue. The US and Eu countries also have lab safety issues and we've been lucky so far.

Please stop flagging comments that raise it unless they are truly xenophobic, which this one doesn't seem to be.

I agree, even if the comment was made as a joke. All this wasted effort on covid zero policy could have been directed towards locking down lab safety, shutting down unsanitary markets, and preventing other human/animal cross infections.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#218

Post by anthonypasq »

_fat_santa wrote: post #211
pvarangot wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> another revolution will occur So the playbook of the CCP in cities seems to be push and push and push until the people revolt and then you cull the activists that are willing to fight by running the army through the streets and shooting everyone that's revolting. This has been a thing since Maos purges and it's the same thing they did in Hong Kong by slowly adding stupid rules until the people willing to revolt had…

IMO it's all about Xi and the other folks at the top trying to "save face" [1]. Looking it from that lens it all makes perfect sense. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)

no, it doesnt make any sense, because he is going to get himself assassinated or there is going to be a revolution if they keep this up.

there is no way, unless the government bureaucracy is orders of magnitude more deranged than we've thought, that destroying the country and the global economy is worth less than saving face.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#219

Post by shimon »

abeppu wrote: post #164
_fat_santa wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the absolute detriment and destruction of everything else it seems. With how fast Omicron spreads, zero-covid is simply untenable these days but China is trying... The basic report is that people are starving. The government has provided food but the food situation is…

Everyone other than the Chinese government seems to agree that a zero covid policy isn't realistic anymore. And empirically, they haven't succeeded. But ... why is that the case? Why _doesn't_ an ultra-strict lockdown for this long prevent spread (and allow existing cases to resolve)? What are the remaining opportunities for it to spread? Throughout 2021, I had sort of told myself that most of the harms of the pandem…

If you could isolate everyone in the whole world for 3 weeks, you would cut down on a lot of infectious disease as most individuals would beat their infection in that time and little transmission would occur.

However, you still wouldn't fully eliminate infections because some people would not beat their infection in that time. They might sustain an infection for longer because of their own health, e.g. they could have an immune disorder or be on immunosuppresant meds.

Of course you can't actually do that because (1) the whole world's human population is incapable of coordinated action on this scale, (2) there would be lots of very valid exceptions -- e.g. are you going to split up a family with 10 kids or kick very ill people out of hospitals?, and (3) lots of people would try to cheat and many of them would succeed.

Basically we should be aiming for maximal vaccination, good treatments, constant monitoring, and good non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. ventilation, masks in crowded places). Lockdown-type measures should be used when there is the possibility that critical healthcare infrastructure could fail under excessive load, i.e. things like childbirth and broken legs could become dramatically more deadly.

Re: Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month

#220

Post by pvarangot »

wvenable wrote: post #179
chamucoman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The zero-Covid is just an excuse to manipulate the local (increasing wealth of citizens) and global (supply chain disruption) economic landscape. This should be obvious to anyone, but I guess is not, and some people still think this is about Covid.

How does disrupting the supply chain help anyone ?

I think it's like a government backed strike or lockdown. The CCP is getting tired of the US Government bullshit where independent states or the federal government crazily ban or allow Chinese products for whatever crazy bullshit reasons and they change it every couple of months.

In the chemical industry it's pretty bad. Some stuff I know shops in China refuse to synthesize anymore because it's like they tool up and then they can't sell it anymore to anyone because some US agency bans its import.

Of course if they also stop making phones everyone gets mad.

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