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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

#111

Post by munk-a »

batch12 wrote: post #70
whimsicalism wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it has worked until they have zero covid. Maybe a silver lining from this will be people resisting anything happening they perceive as mistreatment from their government.

If people weren't so resistant to government policy we might have seen something close to zero covid rolled out in the US and, instead of the US being the locus of disease for a number of years, we might have actually ended this pandemic with a decisive but painful quarantine - instead we'll continue in this state of psuedo quarantine for who knows how many years... how we comport ourselves today might just be the new social standard.

China's decision to continue on the zero-covid route seems extremely unwise once it was clear that breakouts were happening across the globe and containment was no longer an option - but initially pursuing containment was an extremely wise policy.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#112

Post by version_five »

munk-a wrote: post #99
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?

I think if the world had been on board with a zero covid policy we probably would've weathered the pandemic much better - but convincing western nations to adopt that approach and their populace to actually accept the approach would have been a job and a half. My feeling through most of COVID (as someone in BC, Canada) is that the government is trying their best to minimize the amount people leave their homes while a…

Whether or not global lockdowns would have worked, I prefer a world in which you can get covid to one in which the government can confine you to your house. You're welcome to move to China if you prefer the latter approach - or just confine yourself to your house yourself...

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#113

Post by lambdaba »

whimsicalism wrote: post #53
rrsmtz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Well, the US does top the world in obesity and other comorbidities that increase frailty.

I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. On a related note I've just learned that one of the reasons they are more affected by the lockdowns is that the culture much prefers fresh food.

And no, there was no way most or any Western nations could have managed lockdowns of the sort that would have the necessary impact (of which I'm highly doubtful), for numerous reasons. The consequences of the so called "soft" approach on lockdowns are and are going to be massive anyway. And probably for naught.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#114

Post by east2west »

whimsicalism wrote: post #43
dougmwne wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is the standard line from 50-cents (五毛). US and CCP counts deaths differently. One needs only to compare flu statistics to know they are not comparable.

US counts anyone with virus at the time of death while CCP releases no data and on rare occasion they publish statistics, the numbers are several orders of magnitude lower than US numbers.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#115

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

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…

Many calamities are unevenly distributed, so I would suppose Covid and lockdowns are just the same. (Even natural disasters- some homes are flooded, some homes are not…) the problem is in aggregate how much loss and suffering is acceptable. Especially in a case like this, arguably man made.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#116

Post by munk-a »

version_five wrote: post #112
munk-a wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if the world had been on board with a zero covid policy we probably would've weathered the pandemic much better - but convincing western nations to adopt that approach and their populace to actually accept the approach would have been a job and a half. My feeling through most of COVID (as someone in BC, Canada) is that the government is trying their best to minimize the amount people leave their homes while a…

Whether or not global lockdowns would have worked, I prefer a world in which you can get covid to one in which the government can confine you to your house. You're welcome to move to China if you prefer the latter approach - or just confine yourself to your house yourself...

In fact I have mostly confined myself to my house. I can work remotely and we have an income sufficient to rely on instacart and delivery for food. We go out for walks in the neighborhood but we avoid going in stores or restaurants except on rare occasions. We've taken one vacation (during the lull before omicron became a thing) and we'll try and take another vacation this summer but, otherwise, we're trying our best to contribute to keeping everyone around us, our friends and relatives, safe. That doesn't mean I don't want it to end though.

I don't think your comments about moving to China are at all productive to the dialog though.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#117

Post by rrsmtz »

whimsicalism wrote: post #53
rrsmtz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

China and the USA are vastly different countries, in almost every single way that modern states can be different. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#118

Post by seanmcdirmid »

lambdaba wrote: post #113
whimsicalism wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well, the US does top the world in obesity and other comorbidities that increase frailty. I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function. On a related note I've just learned that one of the reasons they are more affected by the lockdowns is that the culture much prefers fresh food. And no, there was no way most or any Western nations could have managed lockdowns of…

> I'm pretty confident in stating that the average Chinese has overall better immune system function.

I would disagree with this, especially in Southern China in the winter. The lack of indoor heating has a huge impact on your immune system, to the point that it is extremely easy to get sick.

There is a reason a bunch of old people die in Hong Kong whenever the temperature drops below 5C, which is much more developed compared to the rest of southern china.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#119

Post by somewhereoutth »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #26
somewhereoutth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Omicron does seem to be more contagious, but given that other regions of China have successfully contained it, not so much more contagious that strict lockdown won't work. It appears that the Shanghai 'disaster' has been caused by the typical combination of complacency and attempts to balance with business as usual.

Re: The silenced deaths of the Shanghai 2022 lockdown

#120

Post by munk-a »

QuikAccount wrote: post #65
whimsicalism wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm not taking a side on whether or not deaths could've been averted but I would be very skeptical of data coming out of China.

I don't think that's a very productive line of reasoning at this point. It's extremely likely that Chinese COVID deaths have been fudged, but that fudging still places them pretty close to the top of the list in terms of proportional COVID deaths. China isn't able to cover up two large metropolises disappearing off the face of the earth - I'm almost certain there is a fair amount of statistical fudging but I think we can be confident that the numbers are in the same ballpark.

So, at the end of the day, I think the rest of the discussion remains unchanged.

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