4 ms·

Why the World Needs China’s Covid-Zero Policy

4 points by valprop1 5y ago

Ambolia 5y ago
Are China covid numbers accurate? Or is it just counting internally, dealing with it internally, and reporting externally zero cases? Would it be even desirable to keep your population 100% isolated from a global pandemic while the virus keeps mutating?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
- yorwba 5y ago
  The boundary between external and internal isn't quite so clear as it may seem. While many countries have given up on travel restrictions, Taiwan still tests and quarantines all travelers and publishes daily reports about detected cases. The most recent one https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/kMqQS4UPtrLKyXsFknCV7Q?typeid=9 https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/kMqQS4UPtrLKyXsFknCV7... has 10 local cases and 44 imported ones, of which 5 are from the US, 3 each from Austria and the United Arab Emirates, 2 from the Netherlands, and 1 each from Germany, Vietnam, France, Cambodia, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Spain, Singapore, Greece, Malaysia and India; 18 others were still under investigation. Despite the geopolitical situation between Taiwan and China, there's still a lot of trade and consequently movement of people between them. If there were many more infections in China than reported, it wouldn't go unnoticed in Taiwan. Even within China, it's hard to separate internal and external. If doctors keep diagnosing patients with COVID but are told to keep quiet about it, many of them will still try to warn their family and friends, like Li Wenliang did. And Li Wenliang was declared a hero and a martyr, so some idealistic doctors might very well take that as encouragement. Conspiracies get harder to maintain the more people are involved. So China's "COVID Zero" policy doesn't actually result in zero cases being reported; zero is just the goal that'll probably never be reached, because there's always some big outbreak somewhere (e.g. most recently in Baise, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, at the border to Vietnam) and even when the first detected case triggers an immediate lockdown, it takes a few weeks for the outbreak to fizzle out, by which time there'll be a quarantine failure somewhere else. As for how desirable it is to isolate the population from the pandemic, well, as long as there are vaccines that train the immune system as well as an actual infection while being less dangerous, it's preferable to vaccinate everyone rather than expose them to the virus directly. The problem for China is mostly that the vaccines they've been using don't seem to be very good.
alamortsubite 5y ago
One one hand, CoronaVac and Sinopharm aren't so hot and Omicron may be more contagious than measles. On the other, the Chinese seem to be amazing at lockdowns. The article comes to the conclusion that the latter is best for China and the rest of the world, but it will be a delicate balance. For the sake of the Chinese people, I hope that if one of the Chinese mRNA candidates isn't ready soon, the government puts its fragile ego aside and imports a foreign vaccine.
asojfdowgh 5y ago
there is zero approaches between "open everything up no restrictions ever again" and "everything must be completely locked down on first sign of anything, no exceptions" And then to reference australia, which would have taken a much more moderate approach to re-opening if the federal side of things wasn't keen on kamikaze'ing their reputations by trying to kill everyone or in shorter words, it feels misleading to pick a country that intentionally messed up its reopening, as an example of what could happen to a much more orderly nation

4 points by valprop1 5y ago

Are China covid numbers accurate? Or is it just counting internally, dealing with it internally, and reporting externally zero cases? Would it be even desirable to keep your population 100% isolated from a global pandemic while the virus keeps mutating?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
yorwba 5y ago
The boundary between external and internal isn't quite so clear as it may seem. While many countries have given up on travel restrictions, Taiwan still tests and quarantines all travelers and publishes daily reports about detected cases. The most recent one https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/kMqQS4UPtrLKyXsFknCV7Q?typeid=9 https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/kMqQS4UPtrLKyXsFknCV7... has 10 local cases and 44 imported ones, of which 5 are from the US, 3 each from Austria and the United Arab Emirates, 2 from the Netherlands, and 1 each from Germany, Vietnam, France, Cambodia, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Spain, Singapore, Greece, Malaysia and India; 18 others were still under investigation. Despite the geopolitical situation between Taiwan and China, there's still a lot of trade and consequently movement of people between them. If there were many more infections in China than reported, it wouldn't go unnoticed in Taiwan. Even within China, it's hard to separate internal and external. If doctors keep diagnosing patients with COVID but are told to keep quiet about it, many of them will still try to warn their family and friends, like Li Wenliang did. And Li Wenliang was declared a hero and a martyr, so some idealistic doctors might very well take that as encouragement. Conspiracies get harder to maintain the more people are involved. So China's "COVID Zero" policy doesn't actually result in zero cases being reported; zero is just the goal that'll probably never be reached, because there's always some big outbreak somewhere (e.g. most recently in Baise, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, at the border to Vietnam) and even when the first detected case triggers an immediate lockdown, it takes a few weeks for the outbreak to fizzle out, by which time there'll be a quarantine failure somewhere else. As for how desirable it is to isolate the population from the pandemic, well, as long as there are vaccines that train the immune system as well as an actual infection while being less dangerous, it's preferable to vaccinate everyone rather than expose them to the virus directly. The problem for China is mostly that the vaccines they've been using don't seem to be very good.

alamortsubite 5y ago

One one hand, CoronaVac and Sinopharm aren't so hot and Omicron may be more contagious than measles. On the other, the Chinese seem to be amazing at lockdowns. The article comes to the conclusion that the latter is best for China and the rest of the world, but it will be a delicate balance. For the sake of the Chinese people, I hope that if one of the Chinese mRNA candidates isn't ready soon, the government puts its fragile ego aside and imports a foreign vaccine.

asojfdowgh 5y ago

there is zero approaches between "open everything up no restrictions ever again" and "everything must be completely locked down on first sign of anything, no exceptions" And then to reference australia, which would have taken a much more moderate approach to re-opening if the federal side of things wasn't keen on kamikaze'ing their reputations by trying to kill everyone or in shorter words, it feels misleading to pick a country that intentionally messed up its reopening, as an example of what could happen to a much more orderly nation