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Does anybody know what the situation is in the rest of China? I hear there are a couple of strict lockdowns in other cities, and some districts of Beijing. Chin

Does anybody know what the situation is in the rest of China? I hear there are a couple of strict lockdowns in other cities, and some districts of Beijing. China has in the past justified their harsh measures because the relative majority could live without Covid restrictions (and illness and deaths of course). It would be interesting to see what portion of the population is on lockdown, but it is hard to find good sources in English.

loeg 4y ago
I ordered from Xiamen, China in late April and it shipped basically on time (some time to actually build the item) 1.5 weeks later. So I don’t think there’s insane lockdowns there currently.
whoevercares 4y ago
Not much on “continuous lockdown”. Lockdown in China is “dynamic” and at this point a great portion of the population has been on a lockdown at once. Many smaller city are in lockdown sporadically every few weeks but they are not crowded. Most rural areas are not tightly managed either, lockdown is per village or even per household basis with no statistics. I think for China what matters are the big Tier1 cities. It’s enough to paralyze China if 2-3 of them implement full city wide lockdown. Core areas of Beijing has implemented daily test, not much in its suburbs though. So far Beijing is quite manageable still. Source: family in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and several other Tier 2/3 cities across China.
zardinality 4y ago
I could provide maybe another data point there. I lived at a village in a east province for some months and has just left. People are living their normal life, albeit ofc a slightest bit of concern to Corona. But people are more worried that they could not make money now and in near future than having the virus. They are not fearful of starving either, not like people living in the city, farms and fields are everywhere. In the worst time when the town has one or two cases, some are restricted from leaving the county and has to do corona test once for every a while. Some roads are blocked. That is all. But I have heard some worse cases recently, where the cases stays high. Agricultural population accounts for almost a third of the whole population in China. To quote an old proverb in Chinese: when there is small turbulance, stay in the city; when there is a big riot, live in your hood.
- corderop 4y ago
  Seems very similar to 2020 Europe (at least Spain)
  - zardinality 4y ago
    Yeah, it is like the summer that year in EU. In summer EU still has tens of cases per day, but it was a quite small number in retrospective angle.
OwlsParlay 4y ago
95% of the country is basically fine. I have a few friends in cities like Chongqing and Nanjing and their only issues are travel restrictions between regions.
- eggnet 4y ago
  Just to be clear, 5% of China is 70 million people.
  - mushbino 4y ago
    If all of those 70 million got COVID, in how many cases would it likely be fatal?
    - gbear605 4y ago
      Judging by the US, at least 200 thousand. We’ve had just over 1 million deaths with a population of 330 million. Of course, many of those 330 million still haven’t had COVID, and many of the cases have been vaccinated people (so they were much less likely to die), and the healthcare system would likely do worse in China. So I’d give a rough estimate of 500 thousand deaths, but that’s a very general guess.
- another_story 4y ago
  I would not call things fine. It's a mess of nonstop testing and ridiculous rules being enforced by people who are not trained for it. You've got old people who can hardly walk being asked to leave to get tested multiple times a month and millions who are quickly going broke for lack of work.
  - ARandomerDude 4y ago
    ^ 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."
Markoff 4y ago
My inlaws are imprisoned in Beijing suburb in theor own compound already for 2nd or 3rd month with daily testing. Shanghai is just most visible, but there are many other places, if you just count bunch of the biggest places you quickly came to something like 150M people locked at home, possibly much more, didn't check it for some time.
photon-torpedo 4y ago
Apart from the local lockdowns, China as a whole has recently issued a ban on international travel from China, making it difficult for people to leave the country. So in some sense, the whole population is locked down (or locked in). Source e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/13/china/china-covid-outbound-travel-restriction-intl-hnk-mic/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/13/china/china-covid-outboun...
daviesliu 4y ago
I live in Hangzhou, 150 miles away to Shanghai. There are a few positive COVID-19 cases in past weeks and we prepared to lockdown, but it did not come. Right now, there is a 48-hour-test policy, and we should have a negative COVID test within 48 hour to enter a public building. Once you have that, almost all services in Hangzhou are open. We can work, shop, meet as usual. The COVID test is free, available in every community, could be collected (mixed with 10 people) in 10 minutes. There are still a few cases some day. I believe we can stop the wide spread of Omicron in Hangzhou in this way. Also, this is how Shenzhen fight with Omicron two months ago, it contain it, but Shanghai got it spread in the same time. Right now, the cases in Shanghai is declining, will be open soon hopefully, finger crossed!
- prewett 4y ago
  The problem is you can't "defeat" COVID by isolating. It's going to be around pretty much forever (even if you vaccinated all humans, there are animals where it circulates, too. So China is going to have to keep the restrictions up until everyone reaches herd immunity, which will take years if everyone keeps isolating.
  - somewhereoutth 4y ago
    Unfortunately with immune evasion and reinfection it looks like herd immunity can't be achieved, no matter how many people get sick and die - they will continue getting sick and dying, as they have been doing outside of China. Thus it is not about 'defeating' Covid, it is about avoiding that endless sickness and death caused by Covid.
livueta 4y ago
Definitely not just Shanghai and Beijing. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/15/global-growth-is-slowing-but-not-stopping-yet https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/15/g... > According to Ting Lu and colleagues of Nomura, another bank, 41 cities accounting for nearly 30% of China’s gdp were still in full or partial lockdown on May 10th.

loeg 4y ago

I ordered from Xiamen, China in late April and it shipped basically on time (some time to actually build the item) 1.5 weeks later. So I don’t think there’s insane lockdowns there currently.

whoevercares 4y ago

Not much on “continuous lockdown”. Lockdown in China is “dynamic” and at this point a great portion of the population has been on a lockdown at once. Many smaller city are in lockdown sporadically every few weeks but they are not crowded. Most rural areas are not tightly managed either, lockdown is per village or even per household basis with no statistics. I think for China what matters are the big Tier1 cities. It’s enough to paralyze China if 2-3 of them implement full city wide lockdown. Core areas of Beijing has implemented daily test, not much in its suburbs though. So far Beijing is quite manageable still. Source: family in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and several other Tier 2/3 cities across China.

zardinality 4y ago

I could provide maybe another data point there. I lived at a village in a east province for some months and has just left. People are living their normal life, albeit ofc a slightest bit of concern to Corona. But people are more worried that they could not make money now and in near future than having the virus. They are not fearful of starving either, not like people living in the city, farms and fields are everywhere. In the worst time when the town has one or two cases, some are restricted from leaving the county and has to do corona test once for every a while. Some roads are blocked. That is all. But I have heard some worse cases recently, where the cases stays high. Agricultural population accounts for almost a third of the whole population in China. To quote an old proverb in Chinese: when there is small turbulance, stay in the city; when there is a big riot, live in your hood.

corderop 4y ago
Seems very similar to 2020 Europe (at least Spain)
- zardinality 4y ago
  Yeah, it is like the summer that year in EU. In summer EU still has tens of cases per day, but it was a quite small number in retrospective angle.

OwlsParlay 4y ago

95% of the country is basically fine. I have a few friends in cities like Chongqing and Nanjing and their only issues are travel restrictions between regions.

eggnet 4y ago
Just to be clear, 5% of China is 70 million people.
- mushbino 4y ago
  If all of those 70 million got COVID, in how many cases would it likely be fatal?
  - gbear605 4y ago
    Judging by the US, at least 200 thousand. We’ve had just over 1 million deaths with a population of 330 million. Of course, many of those 330 million still haven’t had COVID, and many of the cases have been vaccinated people (so they were much less likely to die), and the healthcare system would likely do worse in China. So I’d give a rough estimate of 500 thousand deaths, but that’s a very general guess.
another_story 4y ago
I would not call things fine. It's a mess of nonstop testing and ridiculous rules being enforced by people who are not trained for it. You've got old people who can hardly walk being asked to leave to get tested multiple times a month and millions who are quickly going broke for lack of work.
- ARandomerDude 4y ago
  ^ 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."

Markoff 4y ago

My inlaws are imprisoned in Beijing suburb in theor own compound already for 2nd or 3rd month with daily testing. Shanghai is just most visible, but there are many other places, if you just count bunch of the biggest places you quickly came to something like 150M people locked at home, possibly much more, didn't check it for some time.

photon-torpedo 4y ago

Apart from the local lockdowns, China as a whole has recently issued a ban on international travel from China, making it difficult for people to leave the country. So in some sense, the whole population is locked down (or locked in). Source e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/13/china/china-covid-outbound-travel-restriction-intl-hnk-mic/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/13/china/china-covid-outboun...

daviesliu 4y ago

I live in Hangzhou, 150 miles away to Shanghai. There are a few positive COVID-19 cases in past weeks and we prepared to lockdown, but it did not come. Right now, there is a 48-hour-test policy, and we should have a negative COVID test within 48 hour to enter a public building. Once you have that, almost all services in Hangzhou are open. We can work, shop, meet as usual. The COVID test is free, available in every community, could be collected (mixed with 10 people) in 10 minutes. There are still a few cases some day. I believe we can stop the wide spread of Omicron in Hangzhou in this way. Also, this is how Shenzhen fight with Omicron two months ago, it contain it, but Shanghai got it spread in the same time. Right now, the cases in Shanghai is declining, will be open soon hopefully, finger crossed!

prewett 4y ago
The problem is you can't "defeat" COVID by isolating. It's going to be around pretty much forever (even if you vaccinated all humans, there are animals where it circulates, too. So China is going to have to keep the restrictions up until everyone reaches herd immunity, which will take years if everyone keeps isolating.
- somewhereoutth 4y ago
  Unfortunately with immune evasion and reinfection it looks like herd immunity can't be achieved, no matter how many people get sick and die - they will continue getting sick and dying, as they have been doing outside of China. Thus it is not about 'defeating' Covid, it is about avoiding that endless sickness and death caused by Covid.

livueta 4y ago

Definitely not just Shanghai and Beijing. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/15/global-growth-is-slowing-but-not-stopping-yet https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/05/15/g... > According to Ting Lu and colleagues of Nomura, another bank, 41 cities accounting for nearly 30% of China’s gdp were still in full or partial lockdown on May 10th.