Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by sokoloff » Tue, May 17, 2022, 1:15 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #319

spookthesunset wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At least, in the USA, we have learned nothing from the past two years. I'm pretty sure if Ebola went airborne, and people were dropping dead in the streets, there would still be a large number of people downplaying, denying, and politicizing the virus. And if the government dared to even suggest they voluntarily isolate, they'd be angrily protesting in the street for their innate right to spread it around and die. We…

I don’t recall a single peep of protest of unfair confinement of Americans in the 2014 Ebola cases in the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_cases_in_the_Uni...

If anything, I recall hearing calls for greater restrictions on the cases and close contacts rather than more lax treatment.

That leads me to conclude that people are capable to calibrate their support for restrictions based on some combination of virulence and transmissibility of a disease. Ebola is far more virulent than SARS-CoV2 but less transmissible, so perhaps people have a different level of concern for each of the factors than others would wish.

(It sucks that this matters to some in the discussion, but I’m double-vax’d plus boosted and went out of my way to get each of those shots literally within two days of my first moment of eligibility.)

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

#332

Post by lamontcg » Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

twic wrote: post #261

lamontcg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data from Hong Kong shows that three shots of Sinovac is still 98% effective against severe outcomes with Omicron: https://fortune.com/2022/03/22/china-covid-vaccine-data-reop... And it doesn't make a lot of sense that the different vaccines would be substantially different against different variants or would wane quicker once the same level of vaccination was reached. Once you've got the T-cells and B-cells they're…

> And it doesn't make a lot of sense that the different vaccines would be substantially different against different variants or would wane quicker once the same level of vaccination was reached. Once you've got the T-cells and B-cells they're permanent and they aren't going to remember what kind of vaccine they came from. The differences in the vaccines should just be in overall effectiveness. Not quite. Subunit (Nov…

Except there's a lot of studies showing CD8+ T-cell generation from inactivated coronavirus vaccines:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.7662...

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/resp.14191

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1198743X2...

The dendritic cells which take up the inactivated virus vaccine will chop up the structural and spike proteins and display that on host MHC for T-cells and B-cells in germinal centers. The T-cells don't know if the protein fragments come from foreign particles or cell synthesis. The happens in both mRNA vaccines and inactivated virus vaccines and both require cross-presentation by the dendritic cells.

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

#333

Post by nradov » Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:17 AM UTC

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…

No thanks. The virus is here to stay and can never be eradicated. I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life wearing a mask, regardless of the risk. We're all going to get infected eventually anyway, regardless of what we do.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

Case rates are meaningless and largely reflect the amount of testing done rather than the actual number of infections.

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

#334

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

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…

If you listen to Ben Thompson’s Stratechery podcast (paid), you will get a first hand account about what a zero tolerance looks like. He is an American who lives in Taiwan and caught Covid in the US. They forced him into what was basically really strict student housing with three meals delivered a day. The US is too big for that to ever work in the US and no one would put up with it.

It’s not the masks that are keeping cases low. It’s very strict lockdown that you could never do with 300 million people and porous borders.

The Covid pandemic has been one of the unvaccinated for over a year. Why should we enforce a policy for people who have voluntarily put themselves at higher risk?

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

#335

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #318

davidguetta wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the long term only vaccines limit death, not lockdowns. Chinese people will all have covid as western people did. And even if it worked.. at what price ? living in a prison-country for the sake of saving mostly 80+ year old people ?

It buys time until the next generation of vaccines. Which are coming along well.[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/19/moderna-redesigned-covid-vac...

We are never going to be “over Covid”. In the US there aren’t that many people being hospitalized who are vaccinated. People who choose not to get vaccinated and die is just Darwinism.

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

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Post by nradov » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:02 AM UTC

minsc_and_boo wrote: post #278

tinus_hn wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if only COVID didn’t spread through wildlife this would be some kind of victory. But it does, so a few weeks after the end of the lockdowns COVID will be back and all this sacrifice will be for nought.

Based on the evidence available, there is no reason to believe COVID spread from wildlife is anything other than rare. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...

It doesn't matter whether animal to human transmission is rare or common, all it takes is once to start things going again. Remember how the pandemic started in 2019?

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

#337

Post by nradov » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:03 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #290

tinus_hn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s known to happen and there is absolutely no way to test how often it happens, so this kind of handwaving is opinion masked as science. And it doesn’t really matter, because the lockdown tactic only works with COVID-zero, not with COVID-one. So even if only one infection spreads from wildlife, you’re back at square one and you can start your lockdowns all over again. And don’t think you can just detect the infecti…

Shenzhen currently tests almost everybody every 48 hours. "Whenever someone asks to see my health code, I feel embarrassed. On the lower left-hand side of my code, in the “nucleic acid testing” section, a green code with the words “within a week” flashes up – not the blue “24-hour negative” or the purple “48-hour negative” codes needed to enter most public venues in Shenzhen." My residential compound even installed a…

Saving lives is not a sufficient reason to introduce a surveillance state.

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

#338

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:04 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #214

hueyluey wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well unless you skip over that whole Civil War thing where the states weren’t exactly “united”

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

#339

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:07 AM UTC

devonkim wrote: post #135

ARandomerDude wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ This is exactly why I was against lockdowns in America circa June of 2000. Somehow back then if you took this position you were labelled anti-science, a racist, basically a serial killer, etc. I hope next time there is a major event people will stop and think "Maybe this person just disagrees with my conclusion."

I was only “against” lockdowns more recently on the principle that the reactance to it combined with an inappropriate infrastructure and system makes it not terribly effective and would hurt the efficacy of it as a policy vs the sound, rational theory from a purely epidemiology standpoint. If anything, I was hoping at least people would accept masking to the N95 standard but I don’t know what it’ll take before people…

There was absolutely no case for lockdowns or mask mandates after vaccines were widely available. Getting Covid is not that risky if you are vaccinated. For those who aren’t by choice, who cares?

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

#340

Post by nradov » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:16 AM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #320

twic wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, firstly, because you can't actually do that. If literally everyone stays at home for three weeks, then there is nobody to staff power plants, water plants, etc, and those services fail. There are also no ambulances to help people who fall ill at home, no hospitals to take them to. No police to chase after people who decide to break lockdown and loot some deserted shops or prey on isolated families. No firemen to…

Thanks for this reply. I'm guessing the first two points are the most important? And I would have hoped that after 2 years of planning, China could have figured out a lot of ways to improve 1. They certainly have some workforces who have been obligated to live at their workplace, with regular testing. For 3-5, even if "lock down for 3 weeks" can't literally stop all cases, it still sounds like it could have been achi…

No that wouldn't have worked. Due to the long incubation time, contact tracing failed everywhere it was tried. All it takes is one infection to start the exponential growth again.