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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

#321

Post by steveylang »

twic wrote: post #249
drited wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked a Chinese friend who is studying the ongoing restrictions about this. He told me that over 80 vaccination rates in China are only c. 55 percent vs 80 percent in the over 60 category. In HK death rates from omicron were quite high due to the same reason when it had its spike some weeks ago. I too was baffled until I learned of the above.

What i don't understand is how the Chinese authorities can lock down whole cities indefinitely, but can't force a few geriatrics to have an injection.

I think the logic was that in a 'zero COVID' country, the health risk associated with vaccination (for the elderly and vulnerable) was higher than the risks of COVID itself.

I'd hope they are trying to push for increasing vaccination of elderly now, otherwise there will be no end to these lockdowns.

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

#322

Post by ryandrake »

Animats wrote: post #266
ctoth wrote: post #201

Whenever I think about the situation in China it makes me wonder why the Chinese government is spending so much political capital to keep people from getting infected by such an incredibly transmissible disease. I had this idea that China was run by engineer types who were fairly rational. From the initial denial that there was any disease at all, to later saying it wasn't transmissible between humans, to the obvious…

Because it works. Shenzhen is not locked down, but they test everybody several times a week. Singapore is down to 5 of 16 districts with COVID. China's zero-COVID policy worked quite well against the pre-omicron variants, with R around 3. It's a tough struggle against omicron, with R around 7. The US just passed one million COVID deaths. The US's "declare a victory and go home" policy is not working. The US case rate…

I think you can both praise China's intentions and strategy while condemning some of their inhumane enforcement tactics. Zero-COVID is a great ideal, and far better than the USA's incoherent strategy. Different countries in the world tried tactics on the spectrum from human right violations(China) to enforced mandates (Aus, NZ?), to voluntary, unenforced, ignored mandates(USA). But nobody was actually very effective because we can't solve human nature's unwillingness to take collective action for everyone's benefit.

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

#323

Post by somewhereoutth »

ars wrote: post #213
abeppu wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

Lockdowns have been very effective each time they have been enforced. Shanghai the latest example. Things go wrong when they are prematurely lifted.

People only have to take their masks off to eat/drink. Do that outside, or within your own home.

Vaccines have been extraordinarily successful in reducing sickness and death, and indeed transmission. However, alone they are not enough to quell Covid.

Disease acquired immunity has in fact not worked, even combined with vaccination, as Covid has evolved to evade immunity and reinfections are common.

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

#324

Post by somewhereoutth »

prewett wrote: post #291
daviesliu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Hangzhou, 150 miles away to Shanghai. There are a few positive COVID-19 cases in past weeks and we prepared to lockdown, but it did not come. Right now, there is a 48-hour-test policy, and we should have a negative COVID test within 48 hour to enter a public building. Once you have that, almost all services in Hangzhou are open. We can work, shop, meet as usual. The COVID test is free, available in every co…

The problem is you can't "defeat" COVID by isolating. It's going to be around pretty much forever (even if you vaccinated all humans, there are animals where it circulates, too. So China is going to have to keep the restrictions up until everyone reaches herd immunity, which will take years if everyone keeps isolating.

Unfortunately with immune evasion and reinfection it looks like herd immunity can't be achieved, no matter how many people get sick and die - they will continue getting sick and dying, as they have been doing outside of China.

Thus it is not about 'defeating' Covid, it is about avoiding that endless sickness and death caused by Covid.

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

#325

Post by somewhereoutth »

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.

How exactly is "max-Covid" supposed to end? With reinfections common, new variants arising at an ever increasing pace, and waning vaccination efficacy, it seems like the sickness and death will continue unabated. Do we just accept (another!) few years off our life expectancy (and they will be the good years from the middle, not the crummy years at the end), so long as we can go to Wendy's whenever we like?

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

#326

Post by spoonjim »

coolspot wrote: post #145
spoonjim wrote: post #75

Pre-vaccines, China’s Zero COVID approached seemed wise and impressive. Now it is clear that they were just paranoiacs and now have a policy that doesn’t meet the moment.

Or creators of the virus know about some of its dangers more than the rest of the world.

Cui bono? If China engineered COVID, to what end?

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

#327

Post by twic »

harpersealtako wrote: post #285
twic wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is ruled by a cabal of "leftists", but of the "progessive" strain, rather than the "tankie" strain. Criticism of China and communism is fine almost everywhere.

I honestly see more CCP apologists on here than I usually see on reddit (though I don't hang around the places where I'd assume they usually comment I guess, with the exception of a certain popular gacha game subreddit). For example: try mentioning the Uyghur genocide here, you'll be surprised how many people come out of the woodwork to muddle the conversation.

As you say, it probably does depend on where you hang out. I've never detected sino-simping on any non-political subs i read, but because, for my sins, i read a few mildly unorthodox left-wing subs, and they are crawling with CCP apologists, tankies, vulgar anti-imperialists, and so on and so on.

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

#328

Post by rstuart4133 »

ryandrake wrote: post #322
Animats wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it works. Shenzhen is not locked down, but they test everybody several times a week. Singapore is down to 5 of 16 districts with COVID. China's zero-COVID policy worked quite well against the pre-omicron variants, with R around 3. It's a tough struggle against omicron, with R around 7. The US just passed one million COVID deaths. The US's "declare a victory and go home" policy is not working. The US case rate…

I think you can both praise China's intentions and strategy while condemning some of their inhumane enforcement tactics. Zero-COVID is a great ideal, and far better than the USA's incoherent strategy. Different countries in the world tried tactics on the spectrum from human right violations(China) to enforced mandates (Aus, NZ?), to voluntary, unenforced, ignored mandates(USA). But nobody was actually very effective…

> But nobody was actually very effective

Australian here. Define "not very effective" because is looked to me like the approach AU/NZ took was extraordinarily effective.

To those that don't know, the AU/NZ approach was to limit spread with mandatory (enforced by policing) lock downs / masks / social distancing / quarantine / travel embargoes until >80% of the population was vaccinated, then remove all restrictions. It was remarkably effective in preventing the spread of the disease. Only one state screwed it up so badly their hospital system was overloaded for a while (NSW) - and even then it was only for a few weeks. More surprisingly, it was just as effective economically - AU/NZ recovering fast than just about anyone else.

To give you the idea of how effective those measures were: last year, when they were in full effect, we 600 flu cases. This year isn't 1/2 over yet, but the restrictions are gone. 10,000 flu cases so far.

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

#329

Post by vitaflo »

spookthesunset wrote: post #298
sokoloff wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am strongly opposed to this for SARS-CoV2, but for something like Ebola, it might the best possible response.

Pretty sure of Ebola went airborne you wouldn’t need to use government force to keep people at home. Covid needed a marketing campaign and a healthy dose of 24/7 media fearmongering to get anybody to “take it serious”. And even then a good chunk of people called BS on it pretty quickly. If there was airborne Ebola and dudes were dropping dead on the streets with blood coming out of every orifice… totally different sc…

If COVID killed 7 year olds at the same rate as 77 year olds the response here would have likely been much different.

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

#330

Post by jacobolus »

loeg wrote: post #282
jacobolus wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes, though the mRNA vaccines are indeed better. Countries using such vaccines should be trying to provide at least an mRNA booster, especially to people at high risk. The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Look what happened in Hong Kong to see a prediction of what will happe…

> The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes I would not be surprised if this was true, but is there any independent evidence of that? > The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Yes -- in part because of what I mentioned in the previous comment.

> is there any independent evidence of that?

You can find plenty of research about this if you spend a couple minutes searching. E.g. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.22.22272769v... https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2022/05/03/postgradmedj-20... Disclaimer: I have not deeply investigated these papers.

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