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 amo

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.