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What is going on with China's continuing zero-covid policy? Either it's the most expensive face saving exercise the world has ever seen, or they know something
by hanoz 4y ago
What is going on with China's continuing zero-covid policy? Either it's the most expensive face saving exercise the world has ever seen, or they know something about it that we don't.
- yreg 4y agoThe problem is that once they lift it up / fail to contain an outbreak, it will be a devastating one since their population isn't immunized.
- agumonkey 4y agoI'm stumped they didn't consider buying other vaccines. Maybe they don't want to be reliant on the west. They're indeed doing a mistake keep the lock strategy...
- Sakos 4y agoI think it's a combination of not enough Western production, no possibility of acquiring a local production license like India and the hit to their public image if they admit their vaccine isn't good enough. The current largest producer of mRNA vaccines is India, AFAIK, and most of that goes to India and the EU.
- GameOfFrowns 4y agoYou'd think that with China's cavalier attitude towards intellectual property and trade secrets they would just copy one of the more effective mRNA vaccines and distribute it under the current Sinovax label.
- chii 4y agoi do wonder how easy/hard it really is to reverse engineer a vaccine - and if it went wrong, some heads will roll. It's not like software piracy, where a perfect copy could be made.
- hutzlibu 4y agoI think the "code" of the vaccines is pretty much open. It is the production line, that is complicated and hard to set up, if you want to achieve some quality vaccines.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago>i do wonder how easy/hard it really is to reverse engineer a vaccine I think it's easier to gain this information via hacking and data theft or paying insiders for documents than actually reversing the vaccine.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoChina had an unfortunate event where people were poorly reverse engineering baby formula so they poisoned a bunch of their own kids. People in China are still posted about that.
- himinlomax 4y agoThere's probably a lot of know how in the form of trade secrets on top of patents. And in any case, merely copying what's in the patents does not help you as far as certifications are concerned, it's almost impossible to get the exact same end product, and who knows how that turns out once injected.
- agumonkey 4y agoThere's also the russian vaccine, it seems a little better .. considering the context they could have made a deal to buy some.. In any case there are multiple paths available and so far they seem stuck on the failing one. It's strange.
- saint_fiasco 4y agoThey have enough vaccines, they just can't persuade their vulnerable population to take it. Old people in particular don't trust modern medicine and don't trust the government. You know how some old people believe all sorts of conspiracy theories about the government? Because their government was actually evil during their lifetime, it becomes much harder for them to believe that this one time the government really does want to give them medicine for their own good.
- mrtksn 4y agoWould't an actual evil government simply let the old population die and solve the demographics crisis? It's not like they depend on old peoples votes to stay in power. I have relatives in Bulgaria, a country with full access to all western vaccines thanks to EU but is among the least vaccinated countries in the world and among the top deaths of COVID-19 per capita. I was shocked when I visited Bulgaria once travel become possible. Everyone knew someone dead but they also were telling stories about this one person who went to get a vaccine and their veins turned blue and died shaking. People in villages were tellings tories how Bill Gates will monitor them or that the virus and the younger ones were saying that the vaccines are a sham and the governments orchestrated it to reduce the population(Bulgaria is also a top country in population decline, the government and EU are actually trying very hard to increase the population). When people want to believe things, they believe things.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago> Would't an actual evil government simply let the old population die and solve the demographics crisis? It's not like they depend on old peoples votes to stay in power. The CCP may not be the Kiwanis Club but they're not the Legion of Doom either. It's not a democracy but they still need some degree of popular support, and letting everyone's grandparents die is not a great way to engender it.
- leokennis 4y agoWhat I find hard to believe here is that the Chinese government seems very capable of locking down people (i.e. more or less forcing them to stay inside, with patrols and mandatory tests etc.) but somehow they are unable to force those same people to get vaccinated?
- whb07 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dahart 4y ago> Perhaps they know the risks of COVID and correctly weighed them to the risk of the shot Are you implying you think the known risks today of taking the Pfizer vaccine are equal or higher than that of catching COVID?
- whb07 4y agoWell yes. Look at the increased mortality across the heavily vaccinated countries. German insurers are coming out saying there’s a non-COVID /non-standard “thing” that’s impacting people, in particular, males.
- solumunus 4y ago> Perhaps they know the risks of COVID and correctly weighed them to the risk of the shot How could you possibly consider this as a possibility? We have enough data to see clearly, with no reasonable debate, that this is complete nonsense.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dncornholio 4y agoI think the biggest problem is lifting the measures indicates admitting mistake
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rippercushions 4y agoChina has a 87% COVID vaccination rate, which is higher than the US (79%). However, the Chinese-made vaccines are not very effective, and many of the unvaccinated are elderly. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1279024/china-coronavirus-covid-19- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1279024/china-coronaviru... vaccination-rate/
- yreg 4y agoNot just that, how many people in US already had covid and how many did in China?
- kevingadd 4y agoYou can get it more than once, though.
- jahnu 4y agoIt's even worse than that; hazard ratio increases significantly with each re-infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3
- ejstronge 4y ago> It's even worse than that; hazard ratio increases significantly with each re-infection https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3 I don’t think this paper is a great source for that idea - the ratio of people with one infection (440,000) to people with three or more infections (1,000) is so different that I wonder if demographics or behavioral characteristics differ between the groups. Empirically, their conclusion can’t really be true or each COVID-wave would be worse than the preceding one
- leoedin 4y agoI think most people I know have had it at least twice now - if symptoms were escalating with each infection it would be pretty big news.
- zarzavat 4y agoI don’t buy that. No other country was able to completely arrest the spread of COVID through lockdowns, even Australia and New Zealand which are islands surrounded by giant oceans were not able to stop the flood of infections. China borders 14 countries. If there’s “no COVID” it’s because it’s being suppressed, with or without Beijing’s knowledge.
- progrus 4y agoConsider what happens to peoples’ immune systems when you box them up in quarantine and spray them with disinfectant every day for a few years. It won’t be only COVID-19 popping when that artificial suppression ends. RSV, influenza, etc.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoWhat does disinfectant accomplish against respiratory viruses? I thought it was just for show.
- bee_rider 4y agoNZ was pretty successful I thought. Didn’t they make an active decision to stop worrying so much about it after getting vaccines?
- potatochup 4y agoNZs isolation policy couldn't keep out omicron. The upside was, by the time omicron showed up and started spreading around the population, most people were vaccinated, and deaths due to the original strain were very low (I think it was like 50 deaths? 150 maybe?). The country also had most of 2020 and early 2021 totally COVID free, so businesses like cafes, retail, didn't have as much of a shock
- lost_tourist 4y agoNow might be the time though since the major strains of covid seem much milder than the original one.
- bananapear 4y agoThey also provided the genetic sequencing used to create the mRNA vaccines and then… didn’t use them.
- rhaway84773 4y agoIt’s not clear to me why China wouldn’t just get Pfizer and/or Moderna to sell white label versions of their vaccines to at least vaccinate the older population in China. And if not the US vaccines then the Oxford vaccine, which is being sold without a profit even in the West and is far superior to the Chinese equivalent, would be a cheaper option. A big driver of the problem however is that a regime built on controlling the population will almost always default to controlling the population as the answer to its problems.
- rfoo 4y agoThe challenge is not about getting better vaccines, but actually pushing vaccines to the older population. For those >= 80 years old, Only 65.7% had two shots and 40% had booster [1]. This is very low compared to, for example, Singapore. [2] (>90% three shots for >= 60 y.o. group) [1] https://www.caixin.com/2022-11-16/101965816.html https://www.caixin.com/2022-11-16/101965816.html (paywall, the data is in preview tho) [2] https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/vaccination/statistics https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/vaccination/statistics
- Altho00 4y agoIt's probably about saving face. There is no way they would buy western vaccines because that would be admitting theirs don't work as good.
- powerapple 4y agoChinese elders are not going to inject it into their body. You have to inject at least 3 vaccines to be sufficient against variants. The more technology advanced vaccine is going to be worse because people prefer nature herbs, further away from technology is better in their opinions.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
- pjc50 4y agoThere's undoubtedly a lot of face saving going on, but that's because Sinovax isn't as effective as the Western vaccines. And quite a lot of the elderly aren't vaccinated at all. So they can't liberalize without the death rate skyrocketing. Maybe that would be more acceptable now? Difficult for the Chinese people to discuss.
- bananapear 4y agoInteresting that whilst they’re willing to violate human rights in a number of ways, they’re not prepared to force people to take the vaccine or e.g. take away employment for refusing. It’s probably easier that way to spin the situation as “your fault for not taking it”.
- nindalf 4y agoThe can and have convinced most working age people to get vaxxed. The issue is the low rate of vaccination among those who are 80+. These folks rarely interact with organs of the state, and there’s not much you can do to coerce them. Simply put, old people have run out of fucks to give. It’s of course compounded by the reportedly lower efficacy of Chinese vaccines compared to mRNA vaccines. These two factors combine for a predicted high mortality rate among the most vulnerable group can be expected.
- Markoff 4y ago[flagged]
- laputan_machine 4y ago
- andybak 4y agoI'm not sure I understand. How does "lab-leak vs non-lab-leak" relate to this?
- laputan_machine 4y ago- The CCP have been routinely supressing any hypothesis on COVID-19 being a lab-borne virus. - The CCP have been stoic on their approach to zero-COVID - IF the virus was lab-borne, and IF the CCP know it was, is it not (very, very remotely) possible they know more about the consequences of this virus? That line of reasoning is pretty conspiratorial, but given that the CCP have been incredibly cagey about the whole affair, I don't think it's unreasonable to be doubtful. I think it is FAR more likely that it is a face-saving exercise, but I also think it's worth keeping an open mind
- yreg 4y agoTheir behaviour is not that weird for an authoritarian regime and easily explainable without this theory imo. (As you say as well.) What would be an example of a piece of knowledge which they could have about the virus and which would warrant (in our eyes if we knew) 0 covid policy forever? Maybe I lack the imagination. Edit: Please don't downvote replies to this comment with fabricated not-real scenarios. That's exactly what I asked for!
- Filligree 4y ago“99% lethality at five years” is something you could conceivably engineer. I find this extremely unlikely, but that’s the sort of thinking being pointed at.
- ohyes 4y agoHow would one engineer that? I would expect there to be some signs that it would be lethal in the future… a continued decline rather than full recovery. I haven’t had it yet, I suppose I should prepare to be practically the last person alive. This seems far-fetched
- timdaub 4y ago> The sperm concentration of the COVID-19 negative group was significantly higher than those in the COVID-19 positive group. No statistically significant difference was detected between the groups for sperm motility and morphology. It was observed that men with COVID-19 had decreased sperm concentrations suggesting that COVID-19 may have a negative effect on male fertility. However, in the long term, more comprehensive studies with a large sample size are needed to understand better the changes in sperm concentration. - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27971 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jmv.27971
- chrisbaker98 4y agoOkay, so we should just stay locked in our houses for the rest of our lives?
- isthisthingon99 4y agoGiven what I know about the modern man in general (being one, being around them), it's possible that more healthy men do not catch covid and also have higher sperm counts to begin with. Not sure if the study took that into account.
- lelanthran 4y ago> it's possible that more healthy men do not catch covid I'm pretty certain that that is not true. There is no study I've seen that correlates (either positive or negative) susceptibility to COVID with general health.
- isthisthingon99 4y agoPretty sure super fat people have negative outcomes no reason to believe that stops at infection.
- edejong 4y ago* Mild Covid is linked to brain damage months after [1][2] * Here is a collection of threads describing all the possible negative influences COVID has on the cardiovascular system, the brain, kidneys and the autoimmune system. https://twitter.com/laurieallee/status/1521178772023652352 https://twitter.com/laurieallee/status/1521178772023652352 [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-covid-even-mild-covid-linked-damage-brain-months-infection-rcna18959 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-covid-even-m... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ngcc_hk 4y agoWhatever the issue, it is goner and only viable policy is Co-existence. Not initially but now I’d different. hence no point of zero policy. Emperor has no cloth.
- edejong 4y agoZero policy is also co-existence. The choice is not binary, but a sliding scale based on a risk assessment. Now it is known that reinfections incurs additional risk for long term disability, it makes sense to take measures to reduce the risk of infection.
- davzie 4y agoIs this the article that says brain damage but simply means the nerves in your nose (aka brain) can sometimes be damaged for sometime but later heal? If so that article is the one that made me completely switch my feelings on the news. I refuse to believe any of it anymore. Built to scare.
- Workaccount2 4y agoThe nature publication is clearly about brain damage. Decreased grey matter, smaller overall brain size, decreased cognitive ability.
- keewee7 4y ago
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
- pjc50 4y ago> the vax has rendered herd immunity impossible. This doesn't make any sense; the vaccine confers immunity.
- SailingSperm 4y agoThey may be talking about immunological imprinting[1] - Something possibly resulting in a less than optimal immune response - from the initial vaccine creating highly specific antigens, thus not as comprehensive as an initial natural infection might give to prime the immune system against the virus and its variants. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Original_antigenic_sin https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Original_antigenic_sin
- jtc331 4y agoThere is a potential paradox here because of original antigenic sin (from the paper name): basically the vaccines only present one antigen whereas in natural infection there are multiple antigens. Once the immune system learns one it generally doesn’t learn more on the next exposure (actual infection). Combine that with the antigen presented by the vaccine (spike protein) being the more frequently mutating antigen and you can have a scenario exactly like the GP describes.
- KVFinn 4y ago>basically the vaccines only present one antigen whereas in natural infection there are multiple antigens. Once the immune system learns one it generally doesn’t learn more on the next exposure (actual infection) Surprising, it looks like this isn't really a problem. The immune system manages to adapt to handle a greater variety of strains, if you give it long time between boosters/exposures, so memory B cells can mature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03119-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03119-3
- stuaxo 4y agoThey know it affects the immune system. They expect repeated exposures to mean the west is weakened with lots of people unable to participate in the economy, while their population won't have that issue.
- bananapear 4y agoHow does it affect the immune system differently to other pathogens?
- camdenreslink 4y agoSeems like a bad bet to me, and I’m the most cautious pro-vaccine, pro-mask person there is.
- nashalo 4y agoIt seems unlikely that "weakening the west with lots of people unable to participate in the economy" is the goal here, since the zero-covid policy also does exactly that, both short term and long term by weakening the economy and mental health of residents.
- winReInstall 4y agoIts another social control tool. Get near protests and your covid code gets red. Problem is, it works like a chain reaction, galvanizing protests. Paranoia killed the beast.
- yonaguska 4y agoOr, more likely in my opinion, they're having issues keeping people under control with the economic downturn, and covid lockdowns are the tool they're using to quash dissent. Seems like an irrational strategy, but totalitarian regimes often become victims to their own lies. The USSR showed us that enforcing lies on your own people eventually leads to bizarre, irrational behavior from the government when it tries to operate within a fake framework of lies.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoThe winds of exaggeration blow both ways.
- clircle 4y agoPart of it is that China doesn’t have the same successful vaccines at the US has.
- hunglee2 4y agothey know something we do also know - Covid is bad. Mass infections in Western countries is already an identifiable factor in reduced labour force participation - millions of people not working because of long covid, or need to take care of people not working. Add in the long term (maybe permanent?) cognitive impact, letting Covid run free is a objectively a bad idea. The problem for China is that the entire world has done this, and there are increasing problems with being an outlier - economic, psychological, political. PRC will have to cave, and let it go, but they were not wrong to do covid zero - we all should've done this, together
- leokennis 4y ago> (...) letting Covid run free is a objectively a bad idea (...) there are increasing problems with being an outlier (...) they were not wrong to do covid zero - we all should've done this, together I do not understand this argument. It seems to me like you're saying that zero-COVID is better in the long term, but now worse for China in the short term as they are the only ones clinging on to it. If we all had done zero-COVID together, then now the entire world would still be in some form of lockdown - can you explain how that would be better than the situation we are in now? Example: in The Netherlands, the last Omikron wave basically was a small bump with very little hospitalizations...how would a zero-COVID lockdown like China has now have been better?
- hunglee2 4y agoa global, zero covid lockdown and this would've been all over in 4 weeks - the world absolutely would've been better off had we done this. Lack of coordination between countries means we all have to go the lowest common denominator, which is 'let it rip', which China is finally now having to do.
- tjpnz 4y ago>What is going on with China's continuing zero-covid policy? They know Sinovac won't cut it so this is them buying time until they can get their homegrown mRNA vaccine out to the public. I'm guessing they had problems at the clinical trial stage or are struggling to get vials produced in the quantities they need.
- Markoff 4y agoI'd guess it's mostly about saving the face instead admitting they were wrong and you can't outrun COVID anyway, just postpone infecting whole population. But honestly, if I were XJP worried about losing face I'd cancel all restrictions and sell it as China's success since they were able to wait out more dangerous variants and now they can let it spread with harmless Omicron. But that time passed though now with protests it will show him as weak listening to protesters, which could give ideas also to other people who might think protests will work. Though losing face reason is minor, the real reason for COVID zero are health codes and total control over population. Sure, even before you could make one's life difficult without WeChat/Alipay access, but now you can legally imprison anyone not having health code and you can track all their movements and put them under home imprisonments, so very efficient way against protesters, well at least it was until now. Let's not forget these widespread protests are still completely negligible compared to Chinese population, even if just 1% of Chinese protested that would make like 14M people and total number of protesting people right now will be closer to 140K, so basically nobody participates in these protests, so unless people will get courage and start protesting en masse nothing will really change, certainly nothing about CCP role, the very best scenario is lifting meaningless COVID restrictions and even that's way too optimistic.
- adamsmith143 4y agoTrying to save face. The number 1 priority of the CCP is staying in power and they can't afford to lose even a tiny bit of face by admitting that their chosen Covid strategy is a failure. So they truck on to the bitter end.
- bluenotebo0k 4y agoChinese vaccines are not that effective and China refuses to use other countries' vaccines.
- lost_tourist 4y agoIt might just be good practice for them, as they expect something much worse than covid will eventually get out of the lab somewhere (not just China) or a virus in nature will mutate naturally into something worse than covid.