5 ms·

I see two options: 1. Figure out a working vaccine of their own (or maybe just license and rebrand a western one) 2. Become increasingly authoritarian - like

I see two options: 1. Figure out a working vaccine of their own (or maybe just license and rebrand a western one) 2. Become increasingly authoritarian - like a high-tech North Korea

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
China already has several highly effective vaccines. The problem is that a significant fraction of elderly people don't want to get vaccinated. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore had the exact same problem with vaccine hesitancy among the elderly. It's a cultural thing.
- yreg 4y ago
  Then the option would be to make the vaccination mandatory. CCP doesn't like to do unpopular things, but the lockdowns are not popular either.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    China also requires everyone to have an app which gives you a color coded status based on the results of COVID tests taken by you and by those in your family and neighborhood, which defines what activities you’re allowed to engage in and what areas you’re allowed to access. Basing that off vaccination status would be far more palatable and would be far less disruptive.
    - yreg 4y ago
      Vaccination offers good protection against death / serious illness, but isn't that great against catching the virus and being able to infect someone else. Their motivation is to prevent an outbreak. (Which is perhaps impossible long term).
    - chrisbaker98 4y ago
      And to the surprise of no-one, this system has also been used to control the movements of political dissenters for reasons that have nothing to do with COVID: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-bank-protest-stopped-by-health-codes-turning-red-depositors-say-2022-06-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-bank-protest-stopp... Anyone who doesn't think that western vaxpass systems could be coopted for similar ends is horrifyingly naive.
      - rippercushions 4y ago
        Except that the Western vaxpass systems have all been wound down.
    - deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- j16sdiz 4y ago
  Those "highly effective vaccines" are around 75-80% effective, compare to 90-95% for the best vaccines https://myacare.com/blog/comparison-of-covid-19-vaccines https://myacare.com/blog/comparison-of-covid-19-vaccines
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    The best numbers for this come from Hong Kong, which uses both Sinovac and Biontech/Pfizer.[0] Three doses of Sinovac are actually marginally more protective for >80-year-olds (97.9% vs 97.5% effectiveness at preventing death), though the difference is probably not statically significant. 0. Study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0
- puppymaster 4y ago
  Not Taiwan. 78% of >75 years old has second shot. 70% has 3rd shot. Source: https://covid-19.nchc.org.tw/dt_002-csse_covid_19_daily_reports_vaccine_city2.php https://covid-19.nchc.org.tw/dt_002-csse_covid_19_daily_repo...
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Taiwan has had the same struggle as mainland China, when it comes to vaccinating old people. First of all, mainland China's numbers are similar to those of Taiwan. As of March 2022, 82% of people aged 70-79 in China had two shots, while 51% of people aged 80 and up had two shots.[0] These numbers have probably come up a bit since then. Second of all, Taiwan has a similar curve of vaccination rate vs. age. In Europe and the US, vaccination rate generally rises with age. In mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, it's the opposite, and quite dramatically so. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306112/china-elderly-population-covid19-vaccination-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306112/china-elderly-po...
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- mozman 4y ago
  I don’t think vaccines are nearly as effective as advertised. I don’t know how this data can be torn apart but it seems plausible. https://drpanda.substack.com/p/whats-causing-all-these-excess-deaths https://drpanda.substack.com/p/whats-causing-all-these-exces...
- gnfargbl 4y ago
  China's indigenous vaccines (Sinovac and Sinopharm) are based on inactivated virus technology. Describing them as "highly effective" is a bit of a stretch: the WHO [1] put the effectiveness at about 50% against symptomatic infection, and a study in Hong Kong [2] concluded that three doses were required to gain a similar level of efficacy to the mRNA vaccines. The Chinese government has resisted importing Western mRNA vaccines [3], and their own mRNA efforts are not yet up to speed [4]. [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sinovac-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sin... [2] https://archive.ph/TY9if https://archive.ph/TY9if [3] https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-bet-on-homegrown-mrna-vaccines-holds-back-nation-/6587593.html https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-bet-on-homegrown-mrna-vacc... [4] https://archive.ph/ifvbC https://archive.ph/ifvbC
- gus_massa 4y ago
  That's strange. My father was a voluntary in the polio vaccination in Argentina in ¿1956?. My mother also remember that epidemic. I guess old people here is one of the more conscious groups about how important are the vaccines.
  - StreamBright 4y ago
    The polio vaccine is different though. First it is not a mrna vaccine, second it is ~100% efficient in case of 3 doses. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-duration-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-dur... "Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against paralytic polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective."
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      I don't think parent was comparing vaccines, he was comparing attitudes towards vaccinations. Old people (i.e. those who saw the benefit of polio vaccinations and the horrors of non-vaccination) should be more inclined to vaccinate. Younger people, many of whom have never seen the value of vaccination in their lifetimes, might be more inclined to distrust vaccinations.
    - gus_massa 4y ago
      > The polio vaccine is different though. We used the oral polio vaccine that has attenuated (aka ""live"") virus. A few years ago we switched to use only the injectable polio vaccine that has inactivated (aka "dead") virus. For Covid-19, we use a mix of vaccines. Inactivated virus, vector virus and mrna. It was somewhat random, and each member of my family got a different mix. (I got AstraZeneca , AstraZeneca, Moderna.) Reading only the description, a mrna vaccine looks safer than an attenuated virus vaccine. Anyway, all of them have been testen in clinical trials to ensure they are safe and effective. And anyway, the WHO is trying to use the polio attenuated virus vaccine as few as possible because there are some problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#Schedule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#Schedule
  - saint_fiasco 4y ago
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  It’s a cultural thing for sure. The older generation in China went through the Cultural Revolution and distrusts the government.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    On the contrary, I find that the older generation has much greater trust in the government than the younger generation, but also believes much more strongly in Chinese traditional medicine. In my experience, people in China nowadays do not associate the post-Mao government with the Cultural Revolution, particularly since the people who took over in its aftermath had themselves been persecuted. Deng Xiaoping was purged during the Cultural Revolution. Xi Jinping's father was purged and imprisoned. Even Xi Jinping himself was affected, in that he was "sent down to the countryside." There's a broad rejection of the Cultural Revolution in China, but that isn't the same as a rejection of the Party or government.
zpeti 4y ago
3. Xi gets overthrown, takes the blame for the covid hysteria, new power is installed in China. I have no idea how likely or realistic that is, but seems like an option too.
powerapple 4y ago
vaccine does not help. The death rate is very low, and mostly old people with some existing conditions. The party is trying to keep the death number lower than what is happening around the world, which is almost impossible.

I see two options: 1. Figure out a working vaccine of their own (or maybe just license and rebrand a western one) 2. Become increasingly authoritarian - like a high-tech North Korea

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago

China already has several highly effective vaccines. The problem is that a significant fraction of elderly people don't want to get vaccinated. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore had the exact same problem with vaccine hesitancy among the elderly. It's a cultural thing.

yreg 4y ago
Then the option would be to make the vaccination mandatory. CCP doesn't like to do unpopular things, but the lockdowns are not popular either.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  China also requires everyone to have an app which gives you a color coded status based on the results of COVID tests taken by you and by those in your family and neighborhood, which defines what activities you’re allowed to engage in and what areas you’re allowed to access. Basing that off vaccination status would be far more palatable and would be far less disruptive.
  - yreg 4y ago
    Vaccination offers good protection against death / serious illness, but isn't that great against catching the virus and being able to infect someone else. Their motivation is to prevent an outbreak. (Which is perhaps impossible long term).
  - chrisbaker98 4y ago
    And to the surprise of no-one, this system has also been used to control the movements of political dissenters for reasons that have nothing to do with COVID: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-bank-protest-stopped-by-health-codes-turning-red-depositors-say-2022-06-14/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-bank-protest-stopp... Anyone who doesn't think that western vaxpass systems could be coopted for similar ends is horrifyingly naive.
    - rippercushions 4y ago
      Except that the Western vaxpass systems have all been wound down.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
j16sdiz 4y ago
Those "highly effective vaccines" are around 75-80% effective, compare to 90-95% for the best vaccines https://myacare.com/blog/comparison-of-covid-19-vaccines https://myacare.com/blog/comparison-of-covid-19-vaccines
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  The best numbers for this come from Hong Kong, which uses both Sinovac and Biontech/Pfizer.[0] Three doses of Sinovac are actually marginally more protective for >80-year-olds (97.9% vs 97.5% effectiveness at preventing death), though the difference is probably not statically significant. 0. Study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0
puppymaster 4y ago
Not Taiwan. 78% of >75 years old has second shot. 70% has 3rd shot. Source: https://covid-19.nchc.org.tw/dt_002-csse_covid_19_daily_reports_vaccine_city2.php https://covid-19.nchc.org.tw/dt_002-csse_covid_19_daily_repo...
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Taiwan has had the same struggle as mainland China, when it comes to vaccinating old people. First of all, mainland China's numbers are similar to those of Taiwan. As of March 2022, 82% of people aged 70-79 in China had two shots, while 51% of people aged 80 and up had two shots.[0] These numbers have probably come up a bit since then. Second of all, Taiwan has a similar curve of vaccination rate vs. age. In Europe and the US, vaccination rate generally rises with age. In mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, it's the opposite, and quite dramatically so. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306112/china-elderly-population-covid19-vaccination-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306112/china-elderly-po...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mozman 4y ago
I don’t think vaccines are nearly as effective as advertised. I don’t know how this data can be torn apart but it seems plausible. https://drpanda.substack.com/p/whats-causing-all-these-excess-deaths https://drpanda.substack.com/p/whats-causing-all-these-exces...
gnfargbl 4y ago
China's indigenous vaccines (Sinovac and Sinopharm) are based on inactivated virus technology. Describing them as "highly effective" is a bit of a stretch: the WHO [1] put the effectiveness at about 50% against symptomatic infection, and a study in Hong Kong [2] concluded that three doses were required to gain a similar level of efficacy to the mRNA vaccines. The Chinese government has resisted importing Western mRNA vaccines [3], and their own mRNA efforts are not yet up to speed [4]. [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sinovac-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sin... [2] https://archive.ph/TY9if https://archive.ph/TY9if [3] https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-bet-on-homegrown-mrna-vaccines-holds-back-nation-/6587593.html https://www.voanews.com/a/china-s-bet-on-homegrown-mrna-vacc... [4] https://archive.ph/ifvbC https://archive.ph/ifvbC
gus_massa 4y ago
That's strange. My father was a voluntary in the polio vaccination in Argentina in ¿1956?. My mother also remember that epidemic. I guess old people here is one of the more conscious groups about how important are the vaccines.
- StreamBright 4y ago
  The polio vaccine is different though. First it is not a mrna vaccine, second it is ~100% efficient in case of 3 doses. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-duration-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-dur... "Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against paralytic polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective."
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    I don't think parent was comparing vaccines, he was comparing attitudes towards vaccinations. Old people (i.e. those who saw the benefit of polio vaccinations and the horrors of non-vaccination) should be more inclined to vaccinate. Younger people, many of whom have never seen the value of vaccination in their lifetimes, might be more inclined to distrust vaccinations.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    > The polio vaccine is different though. We used the oral polio vaccine that has attenuated (aka ""live"") virus. A few years ago we switched to use only the injectable polio vaccine that has inactivated (aka "dead") virus. For Covid-19, we use a mix of vaccines. Inactivated virus, vector virus and mrna. It was somewhat random, and each member of my family got a different mix. (I got AstraZeneca , AstraZeneca, Moderna.) Reading only the description, a mrna vaccine looks safer than an attenuated virus vaccine. Anyway, all of them have been testen in clinical trials to ensure they are safe and effective. And anyway, the WHO is trying to use the polio attenuated virus vaccine as few as possible because there are some problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#Schedule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#Schedule
- saint_fiasco 4y ago
bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
It’s a cultural thing for sure. The older generation in China went through the Cultural Revolution and distrusts the government.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  On the contrary, I find that the older generation has much greater trust in the government than the younger generation, but also believes much more strongly in Chinese traditional medicine. In my experience, people in China nowadays do not associate the post-Mao government with the Cultural Revolution, particularly since the people who took over in its aftermath had themselves been persecuted. Deng Xiaoping was purged during the Cultural Revolution. Xi Jinping's father was purged and imprisoned. Even Xi Jinping himself was affected, in that he was "sent down to the countryside." There's a broad rejection of the Cultural Revolution in China, but that isn't the same as a rejection of the Party or government.

zpeti 4y ago

3. Xi gets overthrown, takes the blame for the covid hysteria, new power is installed in China. I have no idea how likely or realistic that is, but seems like an option too.

powerapple 4y ago

vaccine does not help. The death rate is very low, and mostly old people with some existing conditions. The party is trying to keep the death number lower than what is happening around the world, which is almost impossible.