9 ms·

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the abso

I've been following the situation and it's absolutely wild. It all stems from their Zero covid policy, they are the only country still perusing it, to the absolute detriment and destruction of everything else it seems. With how fast Omicron spreads, zero-covid is simply untenable these days but China is trying... The basic report is that people are starving. The government has provided food but the food situation is almost crazier than the lockdown, group buys, crackdowns, the whole works. The most recent reports I've read is that the govt is cracking down on any "non-government" assistance, so if you are caught trying to acquire food outside of the government system, the police throw it all out (couldn't find news reports about this but there is plenty on TikTok). There are tons of other angles, if the government finds out one person in your complex has tested positive, everyone gets taken away to a "recovery center". Lots of videos of people absolutely loosing it, there was reports of a bunch of suicides at a local university, shit just gets crazier the more you read about it[1]. It's an entirely baffling situation, because zero-covid just isn't coming, it's now how this virus works anymore. Some outlets have tossed around the idea that another revolution will occur over this, and while that would be extreme, looking at the situation, I wouldn't rule it out. [1]: https://nypost.com/2022/04/30/nyu-prof-says-shanghai-campus-students-are-committing-suicide/ https://nypost.com/2022/04/30/nyu-prof-says-shanghai-campus-...

Workaccount2 4y ago
Damn, if only China was this strict about its lab safety.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cyberlurker 4y ago
  1. This shouldn't be flagged, it is important that we discuss lab safety as it might be the cause of the pandemic. It might also not be and we will likely never know but it is still important to discuss. 2. Not just China, all countries have abysmal lab safety. This is the most important point. This is not a solely Chinese issue. The US and Eu countries also have lab safety issues and we've been lucky so far. Please stop flagging comments that raise it unless they are truly xenophobic, which this one doesn't seem to be. I agree, even if the comment was made as a joke. All this wasted effort on covid zero policy could have been directed towards locking down lab safety, shutting down unsanitary markets, and preventing other human/animal cross infections.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Lab safety is important of course. Let's not forget there's little to no evidence where covid came from and it doesn't matter at this point. We still have to deal with it. The people who are fixated on China in the US for racist and other reasons (like Trump et al) are also trying to deflect blame from poor us virus responses. The evidence of China being responsible is in the same category as my pillow guy's claims about secret evidence of the 2020 election being stolen - it's just a distracting game for dolts.
vasac 4y ago
- dubswithus 4y ago
  Most of those deaths were before the vaccine was widely available or available at all. Is it really a great choice now?
  - loeg 4y ago
    China isn’t distributing the effective western vaccines to its citizens. Also their death numbers are a complete fiction.
    - GFischer 4y ago
      Chinese vaccines are slightly less effective, but they do work, you can check the numbers in my country, Uruguay. Pfizer has outperformed Sinovac, but it still provided protection.
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes, though the mRNA vaccines are indeed better. Countries using such vaccines should be trying to provide at least an mRNA booster, especially to people at high risk. The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Look what happened in Hong Kong to see a prediction of what will happen if Covid gets loose in mainland China without a more substantial vaccine drive.
      - loeg 4y ago
        > The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes I would not be surprised if this was true, but is there any independent evidence of that? > The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Yes -- in part because of what I mentioned in the previous comment.
helen___keller 4y ago
it's worth mentioning that (like always...) china is heavily controlling information, and since individuals are all locked down there's little leak of information as well (which is to say: nobody really knows what's going on outside their individual complex) So while it is crazy what's going on in shanghai, there's a large void of information and, on the western internet, this void gets filled with lots of speculation and misinformation. So I'd take any "outlets tossing around the idea of a revolution" with a grain of salt - my understanding is that Chinese who are not in Shanghai are generally very supportive of zero-covid policy (again, due to china's information controls about how bad Shanghai is, but also because I think the chinese are very proud of having had negligible covid death after the initial outbreak was under control, compared to USA and the west)
gfodor 4y ago
The end result of Communism is always the same, but the details vary. It’s fundamentally fragile.
- twh270 4y ago
  That would get you banned from 95% of Reddit subs. (Kidding, mostly..)
  - twic 4y ago
    Reddit is ruled by a cabal of "leftists", but of the "progessive" strain, rather than the "tankie" strain. Criticism of China and communism is fine almost everywhere.
    - harpersealtako 4y ago
      I honestly see more CCP apologists on here than I usually see on reddit (though I don't hang around the places where I'd assume they usually comment I guess, with the exception of a certain popular gacha game subreddit). For example: try mentioning the Uyghur genocide here, you'll be surprised how many people come out of the woodwork to muddle the conversation.
      - twic 4y ago
        As you say, it probably does depend on where you hang out. I've never detected sino-simping on any non-political subs i read, but because, for my sins, i read a few mildly unorthodox left-wing subs, and they are crawling with CCP apologists, tankies, vulgar anti-imperialists, and so on and so on.
- hueyluey 4y ago
  Why do you think it's fundamentally fragile? The soviet union lasted for about 70 years. China has had a unique party for around 70 years (and no signs of ot changing anytime soon). What other types of government are less fragile? I think democracy is more fragile for sure.
abeppu 4y ago
Everyone other than the Chinese government seems to agree that a zero covid policy isn't realistic anymore. And empirically, they haven't succeeded. But ... why is that the case? Why _doesn't_ an ultra-strict lockdown for this long prevent spread (and allow existing cases to resolve)? What are the remaining opportunities for it to spread? Throughout 2021, I had sort of told myself that most of the harms of the pandemic were optional, b/c if we really wanted to, we could have given everyone 3 weeks of food, meds, etc, shut literally everyone inside their homes at the same time, no grocery stores, not parks, whatever, and it would have been way less cost and stress and trauma than the path we have taken. But ... evidently that's not true. Why not?
- slashdev 4y ago
  I agree with you. I also thought we were screwed in the West precisely because we couldn't do the kind of strict lockdowns China initially did, which worked so well for them. Things have changed. I would say because countries don't exist in a vacuum, it's not tenable to have a covid zero policy. You'll always get reinfected from outside. This is only more apparent as covid had become more infectious. Combined with effective vaccines and a less dangerous variant - the optimal strategy seems to be just getting on with life and adding restrictions only as needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
  - _fat_santa 4y ago
    The problem with comparing out success to China's is that we know China lies about their numbers. From the outside yeah it looks like what China did worked; however, can we really trust the numbers? Hell can we trust the numbers coming out of the US or any other country.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  This is just a personal guess but I think it’s because omicron is just so infectious that it’s simply impossible to stop the spread
  - ninkendo 4y ago
chasd00 4y ago
the zero covid policy won't change until hte "elections" are over. To change the policy would admit being wrong in the first place and the authorities are not going to do that. So you'll continue to get hard lockdowns no matter the suffering until the "elections" are over at the very earliest.
pvarangot 4y ago
> another revolution will occur So the playbook of the CCP in cities seems to be push and push and push until the people revolt and then you cull the activists that are willing to fight by running the army through the streets and shooting everyone that's revolting. This has been a thing since Maos purges and it's the same thing they did in Hong Kong by slowly adding stupid rules until the people willing to revolt had enough. Zero covid seems so stupid that I am inclined to think someone is just taking advantage of this to identify and purge citizens that are willing to violate government mandates.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  IMO it's all about Xi and the other folks at the top trying to "save face" [1]. Looking it from that lens it all makes perfect sense. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
  - anthonypasq 4y ago
    no, it doesnt make any sense, because he is going to get himself assassinated or there is going to be a revolution if they keep this up. there is no way, unless the government bureaucracy is orders of magnitude more deranged than we've thought, that destroying the country and the global economy is worth less than saving face.
    - steveylang 4y ago
      Among prominent world leaders, both Putin and Xi Jinping were able to handily remove term limits for presidents (Trump also floated the idea plenty of times on Twitter, of course you have to win 2 terms first before you seek a 3rd.) I am no expert on Chinese politics and the inner workings of the Communist party, but I thought this viewpoint from a Chinese dissident was interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/china-cai-xia-former-party-insider-who-dared-criticise-xi-jinping https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/china-cai-xia-...
- narrator 4y ago
drited 4y ago
I asked a Chinese friend who is studying the ongoing restrictions about this. He told me that over 80 vaccination rates in China are only c. 55 percent vs 80 percent in the over 60 category. In HK death rates from omicron were quite high due to the same reason when it had its spike some weeks ago. I too was baffled until I learned of the above.
- twic 4y ago
  What i don't understand is how the Chinese authorities can lock down whole cities indefinitely, but can't force a few geriatrics to have an injection.
  - steveylang 4y ago
    I think the logic was that in a 'zero COVID' country, the health risk associated with vaccination (for the elderly and vulnerable) was higher than the risks of COVID itself. I'd hope they are trying to push for increasing vaccination of elderly now, otherwise there will be no end to these lockdowns.
an9n 4y ago
> It's an entirely baffling situation One of the theories I've read is that CV is a cover for a shutdown related to incipient WW3 - to further stretch failing supply lines to breaking point and thereby hurt the West. I'm not saying I support this theory, I really have no way of proving it one way or the other, but given how strange China's response is thought to be it does make one wonder.
krageon 4y ago
> there is plenty on TikTok On one hand, sure. That can be indicative of reality. On the other hand, look at the times we live in. I would hesitate to just point at evidence on TikTok and call it a day.
steveylang 4y ago
It's all been very crazy to me too, the only plausible factor IMO is the low vaccination of the elderly in China. Overall vaccination rate is very high, but among elderly it is lower. I guess the rationale at the time was that in a COVID-0 country, the risk of COVID itself is lower than health risks associated with vaccination for certain groups. So now they are trying to prevent what happened in Hong Kong (which also had low vaccination rate among the elderly.) I would hope they are trying to vaccinate the elderly now though. I feel like there's a significantly non-zero chance that after the lockdown is lifted, it's going to happenn again within a couple of months.

Workaccount2 4y ago

Damn, if only China was this strict about its lab safety.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cyberlurker 4y ago
1. This shouldn't be flagged, it is important that we discuss lab safety as it might be the cause of the pandemic. It might also not be and we will likely never know but it is still important to discuss. 2. Not just China, all countries have abysmal lab safety. This is the most important point. This is not a solely Chinese issue. The US and Eu countries also have lab safety issues and we've been lucky so far. Please stop flagging comments that raise it unless they are truly xenophobic, which this one doesn't seem to be. I agree, even if the comment was made as a joke. All this wasted effort on covid zero policy could have been directed towards locking down lab safety, shutting down unsanitary markets, and preventing other human/animal cross infections.
- rnk 4y ago
  Lab safety is important of course. Let's not forget there's little to no evidence where covid came from and it doesn't matter at this point. We still have to deal with it. The people who are fixated on China in the US for racist and other reasons (like Trump et al) are also trying to deflect blame from poor us virus responses. The evidence of China being responsible is in the same category as my pillow guy's claims about secret evidence of the 2020 election being stolen - it's just a distracting game for dolts.

vasac 4y ago

dubswithus 4y ago
Most of those deaths were before the vaccine was widely available or available at all. Is it really a great choice now?
- loeg 4y ago
  China isn’t distributing the effective western vaccines to its citizens. Also their death numbers are a complete fiction.
  - GFischer 4y ago
    Chinese vaccines are slightly less effective, but they do work, you can check the numbers in my country, Uruguay. Pfizer has outperformed Sinovac, but it still provided protection.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes, though the mRNA vaccines are indeed better. Countries using such vaccines should be trying to provide at least an mRNA booster, especially to people at high risk. The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Look what happened in Hong Kong to see a prediction of what will happen if Covid gets loose in mainland China without a more substantial vaccine drive.
    - loeg 4y ago
      > The Chinese vaccines do provide substantial protection against the most severe outcomes I would not be surprised if this was true, but is there any independent evidence of that? > The bigger problem though is that a significant proportion of elderly people remain unvaccinated. Yes -- in part because of what I mentioned in the previous comment.

helen___keller 4y ago

it's worth mentioning that (like always...) china is heavily controlling information, and since individuals are all locked down there's little leak of information as well (which is to say: nobody really knows what's going on outside their individual complex) So while it is crazy what's going on in shanghai, there's a large void of information and, on the western internet, this void gets filled with lots of speculation and misinformation. So I'd take any "outlets tossing around the idea of a revolution" with a grain of salt - my understanding is that Chinese who are not in Shanghai are generally very supportive of zero-covid policy (again, due to china's information controls about how bad Shanghai is, but also because I think the chinese are very proud of having had negligible covid death after the initial outbreak was under control, compared to USA and the west)

gfodor 4y ago

The end result of Communism is always the same, but the details vary. It’s fundamentally fragile.

twh270 4y ago
That would get you banned from 95% of Reddit subs. (Kidding, mostly..)
- twic 4y ago
  Reddit is ruled by a cabal of "leftists", but of the "progessive" strain, rather than the "tankie" strain. Criticism of China and communism is fine almost everywhere.
  - harpersealtako 4y ago
    I honestly see more CCP apologists on here than I usually see on reddit (though I don't hang around the places where I'd assume they usually comment I guess, with the exception of a certain popular gacha game subreddit). For example: try mentioning the Uyghur genocide here, you'll be surprised how many people come out of the woodwork to muddle the conversation.
    - twic 4y ago
      As you say, it probably does depend on where you hang out. I've never detected sino-simping on any non-political subs i read, but because, for my sins, i read a few mildly unorthodox left-wing subs, and they are crawling with CCP apologists, tankies, vulgar anti-imperialists, and so on and so on.
hueyluey 4y ago
Why do you think it's fundamentally fragile? The soviet union lasted for about 70 years. China has had a unique party for around 70 years (and no signs of ot changing anytime soon). What other types of government are less fragile? I think democracy is more fragile for sure.

abeppu 4y ago

Everyone other than the Chinese government seems to agree that a zero covid policy isn't realistic anymore. And empirically, they haven't succeeded. But ... why is that the case? Why _doesn't_ an ultra-strict lockdown for this long prevent spread (and allow existing cases to resolve)? What are the remaining opportunities for it to spread? Throughout 2021, I had sort of told myself that most of the harms of the pandemic were optional, b/c if we really wanted to, we could have given everyone 3 weeks of food, meds, etc, shut literally everyone inside their homes at the same time, no grocery stores, not parks, whatever, and it would have been way less cost and stress and trauma than the path we have taken. But ... evidently that's not true. Why not?

slashdev 4y ago
I agree with you. I also thought we were screwed in the West precisely because we couldn't do the kind of strict lockdowns China initially did, which worked so well for them. Things have changed. I would say because countries don't exist in a vacuum, it's not tenable to have a covid zero policy. You'll always get reinfected from outside. This is only more apparent as covid had become more infectious. Combined with effective vaccines and a less dangerous variant - the optimal strategy seems to be just getting on with life and adding restrictions only as needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  The problem with comparing out success to China's is that we know China lies about their numbers. From the outside yeah it looks like what China did worked; however, can we really trust the numbers? Hell can we trust the numbers coming out of the US or any other country.
bowsamic 4y ago
This is just a personal guess but I think it’s because omicron is just so infectious that it’s simply impossible to stop the spread
- ninkendo 4y ago

chasd00 4y ago

the zero covid policy won't change until hte "elections" are over. To change the policy would admit being wrong in the first place and the authorities are not going to do that. So you'll continue to get hard lockdowns no matter the suffering until the "elections" are over at the very earliest.

pvarangot 4y ago

> another revolution will occur So the playbook of the CCP in cities seems to be push and push and push until the people revolt and then you cull the activists that are willing to fight by running the army through the streets and shooting everyone that's revolting. This has been a thing since Maos purges and it's the same thing they did in Hong Kong by slowly adding stupid rules until the people willing to revolt had enough. Zero covid seems so stupid that I am inclined to think someone is just taking advantage of this to identify and purge citizens that are willing to violate government mandates.

_fat_santa 4y ago
IMO it's all about Xi and the other folks at the top trying to "save face" [1]. Looking it from that lens it all makes perfect sense. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
- anthonypasq 4y ago
  no, it doesnt make any sense, because he is going to get himself assassinated or there is going to be a revolution if they keep this up. there is no way, unless the government bureaucracy is orders of magnitude more deranged than we've thought, that destroying the country and the global economy is worth less than saving face.
  - steveylang 4y ago
    Among prominent world leaders, both Putin and Xi Jinping were able to handily remove term limits for presidents (Trump also floated the idea plenty of times on Twitter, of course you have to win 2 terms first before you seek a 3rd.) I am no expert on Chinese politics and the inner workings of the Communist party, but I thought this viewpoint from a Chinese dissident was interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/china-cai-xia-former-party-insider-who-dared-criticise-xi-jinping https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/china-cai-xia-...
narrator 4y ago

drited 4y ago

I asked a Chinese friend who is studying the ongoing restrictions about this. He told me that over 80 vaccination rates in China are only c. 55 percent vs 80 percent in the over 60 category. In HK death rates from omicron were quite high due to the same reason when it had its spike some weeks ago. I too was baffled until I learned of the above.

twic 4y ago
What i don't understand is how the Chinese authorities can lock down whole cities indefinitely, but can't force a few geriatrics to have an injection.
- steveylang 4y ago
  I think the logic was that in a 'zero COVID' country, the health risk associated with vaccination (for the elderly and vulnerable) was higher than the risks of COVID itself. I'd hope they are trying to push for increasing vaccination of elderly now, otherwise there will be no end to these lockdowns.

an9n 4y ago

> It's an entirely baffling situation One of the theories I've read is that CV is a cover for a shutdown related to incipient WW3 - to further stretch failing supply lines to breaking point and thereby hurt the West. I'm not saying I support this theory, I really have no way of proving it one way or the other, but given how strange China's response is thought to be it does make one wonder.

krageon 4y ago

> there is plenty on TikTok On one hand, sure. That can be indicative of reality. On the other hand, look at the times we live in. I would hesitate to just point at evidence on TikTok and call it a day.

steveylang 4y ago

It's all been very crazy to me too, the only plausible factor IMO is the low vaccination of the elderly in China. Overall vaccination rate is very high, but among elderly it is lower. I guess the rationale at the time was that in a COVID-0 country, the risk of COVID itself is lower than health risks associated with vaccination for certain groups. So now they are trying to prevent what happened in Hong Kong (which also had low vaccination rate among the elderly.) I would hope they are trying to vaccinate the elderly now though. I feel like there's a significantly non-zero chance that after the lockdown is lifted, it's going to happenn again within a couple of months.