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A couple of reasons. First, the strict measures were popular and people demanded them. It's been a while since I've spoken with people in China so I'm not sure

A couple of reasons. First, the strict measures were popular and people demanded them. It's been a while since I've spoken with people in China so I'm not sure how much this is still the case, but it was definitely true up to last year. Second, the measures allowed most people to move relatively freely and go to discos when we still had blanket lockdowns in the west. The idea was to crackdown hard and quickly create green zones were life was possible almost as before. While that means millions of people on lockdown at a given time, it was likely a small fraction of the total population. (I'd like to see actual numbers here but find them hard to come by TBH). Third, COVID is special as it is one of the few airborne / aerosol-transmitted diseases that you have a good chanche of supressing. The reason is that it shows overdispersion: most people are only slightly contagious, but few people are extremely contagious. (Caveat: I think that was the case with SARS, and with the early SARS-COV-2 variants, but I haven't seen data for Omicron.) This means that contact tracing is extremely effective. Most people will have had contact with the same few spreaders, and if you take them out, you can suppress the virus such that it will die out in a population. Western countries borked that up completely. When the incident numbers were really low, we dropped most measures, but that would have been the opportunity to eradicate it with just 1-2 more weeks of social distancing. Asian countries were much more successful with suppression. Finally, China is a huge country. Most people move around inside, but rarely leave (its a bit like the US in that regard but much more so). To leave as a Chinese citizen you actually need an exit visa. So the majority of people are not bothered very much by travel restrictions. The comparatively little cross border traffic you can control by just giving everybody mandatory PCR tests. I could imagine the Borders to north Korea, as well as to Laos/Vietnam might be problematic to control, but AFAIK they are pretty closed up now. So it makes totally sense to them to continue their strict course. I imagine as soon as a good vaccine becomes available there too (maybe a nasal vaccine that can prevent infection and not just severe cases), they will reevaluate.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
“Third, COVID is special as it is one of the few airborne / aerosol-transmitted diseases that you have a good chanche of suppressing.” The fatal flaw of this reasoning is that it lies dormant in animals.
- captainmuon 4y ago
  Zoonotic spillovers are rare, this is why you probably never heard about corona viruses before 2002/2003 (SARS). The probability is increasing of course because we are detroying animals' habitats. And because we live in a densely interconnected world but can't agree on how to control diseases. We can either work on those problems, or throw the hands up in the air and blame the bats.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    SARS-COV-2 combines aspects of HIV, the common cold, and Monsanto-engineered protein sequences, none of which had any chance of coming together in a single organism in the wild in order to combine like this. I don't think bats are to blame, nor can this be a "simple matter" of zoonotic spillover.
persedes 4y ago
Could it also be the vaccines that were administered in China being less effective? If I recall people were hesitant to get the ones they developed and they at some point admitted that the initial ones had too low of an efficacy. So it'd make sense (for the gov) to fall back to lockdowns, maybe?
- captainmuon 4y ago
  Definitely. Unfortunately vaccination is political everywhere and there are also profit interests, so they can't just use the "better" vaccines. With the mRNA vaccines and the weaker virus variants, we averted a lot of deaths and the "collapse" of the hospitals in many places. But we are still dealing with many dead, millions of work days lost per year, and many cases of long covid...
psychlops 4y ago
> First, the strict measures were popular and people demanded them. How is this determined? A democratic vote....in China? At best, it's tyranny of the majority. The article quoted Xi as saying the people wanted it, but that's not the same thing. "Videos posted on Chinese social media site Weibo showed people rushing to the park's gates following the announcement but finding them already locked." It's a great policy to apply to other people. But it seems that they don't want any of it.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

“Third, COVID is special as it is one of the few airborne / aerosol-transmitted diseases that you have a good chanche of suppressing.” The fatal flaw of this reasoning is that it lies dormant in animals.

captainmuon 4y ago
Zoonotic spillovers are rare, this is why you probably never heard about corona viruses before 2002/2003 (SARS). The probability is increasing of course because we are detroying animals' habitats. And because we live in a densely interconnected world but can't agree on how to control diseases. We can either work on those problems, or throw the hands up in the air and blame the bats.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  SARS-COV-2 combines aspects of HIV, the common cold, and Monsanto-engineered protein sequences, none of which had any chance of coming together in a single organism in the wild in order to combine like this. I don't think bats are to blame, nor can this be a "simple matter" of zoonotic spillover.

persedes 4y ago

Could it also be the vaccines that were administered in China being less effective? If I recall people were hesitant to get the ones they developed and they at some point admitted that the initial ones had too low of an efficacy. So it'd make sense (for the gov) to fall back to lockdowns, maybe?

captainmuon 4y ago
Definitely. Unfortunately vaccination is political everywhere and there are also profit interests, so they can't just use the "better" vaccines. With the mRNA vaccines and the weaker virus variants, we averted a lot of deaths and the "collapse" of the hospitals in many places. But we are still dealing with many dead, millions of work days lost per year, and many cases of long covid...

psychlops 4y ago

> First, the strict measures were popular and people demanded them. How is this determined? A democratic vote....in China? At best, it's tyranny of the majority. The article quoted Xi as saying the people wanted it, but that's not the same thing. "Videos posted on Chinese social media site Weibo showed people rushing to the park's gates following the announcement but finding them already locked." It's a great policy to apply to other people. But it seems that they don't want any of it.