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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 mistreatmen

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.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Okay, I think that avoiding 3 million deaths might be worthy of some level of praise but agree to disagree :)
- jtc331 5y ago
  You are assuming their reported death numbers are accurate. You are also assuming the deaths caused by these policies won’t end up exceeding that number. Neither assumptions are backed by evidence.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    That's exactly my concern too - right now China's response looks great on the world stage... but the pandemic isn't over yet and China rolled out an extremely ineffective vaccine that leaves their population quite vulnerable. If this disaster spreads to other Chinese metropolitan areas it would be devastating.
    - sharken 5y ago
      Exactly this, the Chinese developed vaccine Sinovac is the primary cause of the poor COVID results. It simply doesn't do the job well enough, but good luck trying to make the Chinese leader choose an American product. So the stubbornness of the regime is at fault, but with no limits on terms anymore, i see only bad things for the future of China.
      - phatfish 5y ago
        Or a German product ;) Although it seems they have recently gotten round to some extensive testing for an mRNA vaccine. Makes you realise how advanced the Biontech and Moderna vaccines were. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-walvax-says-has-most-participants-large-covid-19-mrna-vaccine-trial-2464376 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-walvax-says-has-m...
        Ericson2314 5y ago
        Gosh for all sorts of reasons, direct and indirect, I hope this walvax turns out good.
        sharken 5y ago
        Didn't know this, that is great news for all Chinese citizens. Better late than never must be the motto China is going for.
    - nradov 5y ago
      China's response actually looks terrible on the world stage. I didn't see any other countries welding people into their apartments as a drastic overreaction.
    - godelski 5y ago
      I'm not sure why this is downvoted. This is literally what the CCP is saying, except maybe the part about the efficiency of their vaccine. But other than that, yeah, it is in line. The "0.5% of a billion people is still a lot of people, we can't take that risk" is exactly what they are saying.
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    Exactly. CCP stats doesn't pass Benford's law.
    - munch117 5y ago
      Source? First hit on DDG, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487520/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487520/, says: We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy. That's infections, not deaths, and so doesn't necessarily disagree with what you said. But I still need your source.
      - lobocinza 5y ago
        I based it on this. https://kevinbasset.medium.com/i-used-benfords-law-to-analyze-covid-19-in-113-countries-1a1194668069 https://kevinbasset.medium.com/i-used-benfords-law-to-analyz... Tough both are reporting on old data which tells nothing (good or bad) about the current situation.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    > Neither assumptions are backed by evidence. To the contrary, there is no evidence to suggest that China has had the spread necessary to kill 3 million people nor any evidence suggesting that they have covered up 3 million deaths. You might naively think we have no way of checking, but this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China. We have seen no indication of a deception anywhere near the scale you are suggesting.
    - jtc331 4y ago
      Given how China repeatedly covered up COVID from early on...I think the starting point is assuming that the numbers coming out of there are not accurate. > this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China. Who is doing that testing?
munk-a 5y ago
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.
- nradov 5y ago
  That's just nonsense completely divorced from scientific reality. Even a strict quarantine wouldn't have sufficed to stop a highly contagious respiratory virus with multiple animal reservoirs. It's now clear that the best strategy would have been to focus on protecting the most vulnerable, as recommended by leading experts back in 2020. https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    WWe have successfully eradicated SARS, a respiratory virus, in the past. If we had actually responded faster we could have done the same. China has averted 3 million deaths and most of the country has been free of lockdown for the last 2 years once they got the virus under control. That is "scientific reality". Claims that China's numbers are problematic, while probably true, are not the same as saying that China has hidden millions of covid deaths, which basically nobody who studies this believes.
    - nradov 5y ago
      We didn't eradicate SARS-CoV. It died out on its own. Due to the high R0 and animal reservoirs there is no way to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, or even keep it permanently under control. It will be around forever, just like the other 4 endemic human coronaviruses. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 The only human virus we have eradicated is smallpox. And that only worked because there were no animal reservoirs, and the vaccines were fairly effective at preventing infection and transmission. That situation does not obtain with SARS-CoV-2.

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.

whimsicalism 5y ago

Okay, I think that avoiding 3 million deaths might be worthy of some level of praise but agree to disagree :)

jtc331 5y ago
You are assuming their reported death numbers are accurate. You are also assuming the deaths caused by these policies won’t end up exceeding that number. Neither assumptions are backed by evidence.
- munk-a 5y ago
  That's exactly my concern too - right now China's response looks great on the world stage... but the pandemic isn't over yet and China rolled out an extremely ineffective vaccine that leaves their population quite vulnerable. If this disaster spreads to other Chinese metropolitan areas it would be devastating.
  - sharken 5y ago
    Exactly this, the Chinese developed vaccine Sinovac is the primary cause of the poor COVID results. It simply doesn't do the job well enough, but good luck trying to make the Chinese leader choose an American product. So the stubbornness of the regime is at fault, but with no limits on terms anymore, i see only bad things for the future of China.
    - phatfish 5y ago
      Or a German product ;) Although it seems they have recently gotten round to some extensive testing for an mRNA vaccine. Makes you realise how advanced the Biontech and Moderna vaccines were. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-walvax-says-has-most-participants-large-covid-19-mrna-vaccine-trial-2464376 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-walvax-says-has-m...
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        Gosh for all sorts of reasons, direct and indirect, I hope this walvax turns out good.
      - sharken 5y ago
        Didn't know this, that is great news for all Chinese citizens. Better late than never must be the motto China is going for.
  - nradov 5y ago
    China's response actually looks terrible on the world stage. I didn't see any other countries welding people into their apartments as a drastic overreaction.
  - godelski 5y ago
    I'm not sure why this is downvoted. This is literally what the CCP is saying, except maybe the part about the efficiency of their vaccine. But other than that, yeah, it is in line. The "0.5% of a billion people is still a lot of people, we can't take that risk" is exactly what they are saying.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  Exactly. CCP stats doesn't pass Benford's law.
  - munch117 5y ago
    Source? First hit on DDG, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487520/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7487520/, says: We find Chinese confirmed infections match the distribution expected in Benford’s Law and are similar to that seen in the U.S. and Italy. That's infections, not deaths, and so doesn't necessarily disagree with what you said. But I still need your source.
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      I based it on this. https://kevinbasset.medium.com/i-used-benfords-law-to-analyze-covid-19-in-113-countries-1a1194668069 https://kevinbasset.medium.com/i-used-benfords-law-to-analyz... Tough both are reporting on old data which tells nothing (good or bad) about the current situation.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > Neither assumptions are backed by evidence. To the contrary, there is no evidence to suggest that China has had the spread necessary to kill 3 million people nor any evidence suggesting that they have covered up 3 million deaths. You might naively think we have no way of checking, but this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China. We have seen no indication of a deception anywhere near the scale you are suggesting.
  - jtc331 4y ago
    Given how China repeatedly covered up COVID from early on...I think the starting point is assuming that the numbers coming out of there are not accurate. > this level of spread would be trivial to infer from antibody tests of people traveling to China. Who is doing that testing?

munk-a 5y ago

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.

nradov 5y ago
That's just nonsense completely divorced from scientific reality. Even a strict quarantine wouldn't have sufficed to stop a highly contagious respiratory virus with multiple animal reservoirs. It's now clear that the best strategy would have been to focus on protecting the most vulnerable, as recommended by leading experts back in 2020. https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  WWe have successfully eradicated SARS, a respiratory virus, in the past. If we had actually responded faster we could have done the same. China has averted 3 million deaths and most of the country has been free of lockdown for the last 2 years once they got the virus under control. That is "scientific reality". Claims that China's numbers are problematic, while probably true, are not the same as saying that China has hidden millions of covid deaths, which basically nobody who studies this believes.
  - nradov 5y ago
    We didn't eradicate SARS-CoV. It died out on its own. Due to the high R0 and animal reservoirs there is no way to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, or even keep it permanently under control. It will be around forever, just like the other 4 endemic human coronaviruses. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 The only human virus we have eradicated is smallpox. And that only worked because there were no animal reservoirs, and the vaccines were fairly effective at preventing infection and transmission. That situation does not obtain with SARS-CoV-2.