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> I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people. I wasn't making

> I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people. I wasn't making a direct comparison, and instead of addressing what I said you got on a high horse about being offended. Disappointing. > You have to scroll most of the way through the article to find the first mention of the fact that scientific studies by public health authorities in these countries have shown that the Chinese vaccines in question have high real-world effectiveness This is a good example of what I consider to be maddening. You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.). You do not compare them to the highest performing ones, I can only assume you've done this on purpose. Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are. Some countries refuse to use them based on this alone (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-coronavirus-singapore-data/2021/03/23/7a0582ca-8afc-11eb-a33e-da28941cb9ac_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-coro...) As to how effective they are? The evidence isn't good. Several countries are seeking western booster shots when the initial Sinovac vaccines haven't proven effective enough: Turkey: https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-offers-covid-19-booster-shot-after-using-chinese-vaccine-in-early-drive-11625144544#refreshed https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-offers-covid-19-booster-... UAE: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-giving-third-shot-of-sinopharm-vaccine-to-some-11615575099?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-giving-third-shot-of-sino... Bahrain: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bahrain-facing-a-covid-surge-starts-giving-pfizer-boosters-to-recipients-of-chinese-vaccine-11622648737?mod=article_inline https://www.wsj.com/articles/bahrain-facing-a-covid-surge-st... Vietnam: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-vietnams-attitude-towards-chinese-vaccines-very-telling-2022376 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-vietna... Chinese companies themselves: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-28/chinese-companies-considers-mixing-vaccines-booster-shots https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-28/... And scientists: "But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving. “We will solve the issue that current vaccines don’t have very high protection rates,” Gao said in a presentation on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and immunization strategies at a conference in the southwestern city of Chengdu. “It’s now under consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process.” https://apnews.com/article/china-gao-fu-vaccines-offer-low-protection-coronavirus-675bcb6b5710c7329823148ffbff6ef9 https://apnews.com/article/china-gao-fu-vaccines-offer-low-p... I know you might be tempted to blame the messenger as most do and call all that "fake news", but the data is there. This isn't the NYTs pushing this narrative, it is widely accepted that the Chinese vaccines lose a lot of their potency only a few months after they are given. China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-high-alert-delta-variant-covid-19-spreads-five-provinces-n1275473 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-high-alert-delta-va... I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias. Usually when I get into these discusses on Twitter it ends in XJ denialism, which i'm glad we aren't doing. But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this. For my own curiosity, what is your connection to China? Does your livelihood depend on them in any way?

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
> I wasn't making a direct comparison You were quite obviously comparing Xinjiang to the Holocaust. If you're backing off from that offensive comment, then that's good, but you did indeed draw the connection. > You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.). The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine is actually one of the most effective vaccines. Based on phase-III trial data, it's similar to Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. The Mongolian Health Ministry found not only that Sinopharm performed better than the Russian vaccine, but that it also performed better than the British AstraZeneca vaccine, which is one of the most widely used vaccines in the West. > Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are. This is simply not true. There are multiple peer-reviewed papers reporting on the results of phase-III trials of the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines (e.g., [1,2]). This is in addition to several reports by national health agencies from across the world about the efficacy of these vaccines (e.g., [3]). There is a lot of data in the public domain, and the efficacy of these vaccines is well understood. > But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving. Gao Fu was widely misquoted in the Western press. He made some general comments about how to improve efficacy of vaccines, and proposed very similar ideas as are being considered in the West with AstraZeneca and J&J. That was then spun as an "admission" that Chinese vaccines don't work. Gao Fu even publicly complained about how his words were being misrepresented, but that didn't stop various irresponsible newspapers from continuing to misrepresent his statements. > China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta. China is reacting strongly to the latest outbreak because China has a zero-tolerance strategy. Even if they were using the Moderna or BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, they would follow the exact same policy. After all, SARS-CoV-2 still continues to spread in countries that have more than 50% vaccination rates with mRNA vaccines, and that's completely unacceptable to Chinese society. They are set of getting back to zero incidence. > I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias I raised one example, just to illustrate the problem. The example I raised was one of the most respected newspapers in the US promoting unscientific anti-vax narratives. That's pretty bad. In your response, you delivered a second example of bad reporting on China: Gao Fu's misconstrued comments. I don't mean to be impolite, but in your comments here, you've very confidently repeated a number of false claims about Chinese vaccines that are very widely believed in the West, largely because of the low quality and nationalistic bent of reporting on China. > But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this. I'm on the "side" that says we should have an accurate picture of China. I don't want a glowing picture of the country. I just object to the extremely distorted, narrow image that's become widespread in the US and Europe over the last few years. As I said at the outset, for people who are at all familiar with China, the "China" that you read about in the news is totally unrecognizable. I don't think demonizing a major country that most people know next to nothing about is a good idea. > Does your livelihood depend on them in any way? Please read HN's rules about these sorts of accusations. 1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34037666/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34037666/ 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34246358/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34246358/ 3. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715

DiogenesKynikos 5y ago

> I wasn't making a direct comparison You were quite obviously comparing Xinjiang to the Holocaust. If you're backing off from that offensive comment, then that's good, but you did indeed draw the connection. > You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.). The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine is actually one of the most effective vaccines. Based on phase-III trial data, it's similar to Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. The Mongolian Health Ministry found not only that Sinopharm performed better than the Russian vaccine, but that it also performed better than the British AstraZeneca vaccine, which is one of the most widely used vaccines in the West. > Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are. This is simply not true. There are multiple peer-reviewed papers reporting on the results of phase-III trials of the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines (e.g., [1,2]). This is in addition to several reports by national health agencies from across the world about the efficacy of these vaccines (e.g., [3]). There is a lot of data in the public domain, and the efficacy of these vaccines is well understood. > But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving. Gao Fu was widely misquoted in the Western press. He made some general comments about how to improve efficacy of vaccines, and proposed very similar ideas as are being considered in the West with AstraZeneca and J&J. That was then spun as an "admission" that Chinese vaccines don't work. Gao Fu even publicly complained about how his words were being misrepresented, but that didn't stop various irresponsible newspapers from continuing to misrepresent his statements. > China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta. China is reacting strongly to the latest outbreak because China has a zero-tolerance strategy. Even if they were using the Moderna or BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, they would follow the exact same policy. After all, SARS-CoV-2 still continues to spread in countries that have more than 50% vaccination rates with mRNA vaccines, and that's completely unacceptable to Chinese society. They are set of getting back to zero incidence. > I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias I raised one example, just to illustrate the problem. The example I raised was one of the most respected newspapers in the US promoting unscientific anti-vax narratives. That's pretty bad. In your response, you delivered a second example of bad reporting on China: Gao Fu's misconstrued comments. I don't mean to be impolite, but in your comments here, you've very confidently repeated a number of false claims about Chinese vaccines that are very widely believed in the West, largely because of the low quality and nationalistic bent of reporting on China. > But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this. I'm on the "side" that says we should have an accurate picture of China. I don't want a glowing picture of the country. I just object to the extremely distorted, narrow image that's become widespread in the US and Europe over the last few years. As I said at the outset, for people who are at all familiar with China, the "China" that you read about in the news is totally unrecognizable. I don't think demonizing a major country that most people know next to nothing about is a good idea. > Does your livelihood depend on them in any way? Please read HN's rules about these sorts of accusations. 1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34037666/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34037666/ 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34246358/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34246358/ 3. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715