Apparently the CCP thinks covid is a major risk. Thinks that pissing off tens of millions of middle-class citizens is the better choice.
What do you make of the CCP’s take on covid?
Omicron is very infectious. It moves incredibly quickly. Almost my entire workplace (a school in Denmark) has had it, including me. I'm unvaxxed 55 yrs old, everyone else is vaxxed. It was like a moderately unpleasant cold.
The guy who's renovating my gf's takeaway had it: he's 70 and has cancer. He didn't even break stride.
What do these countries think they're going to do when covid is an endemic, seasonal cold in the rest of the world? Are they going to keep their borders closed forever?
The whole thing is ridiculous.
The alternative is catastrophically worse.
Even conservative estimates of PRC adopting western strategies of vax and opening has 6-7 figure deaths due to quickly overwhelmed medical system that's underdeveloped relative to west. This was pre-Omicron and assumes high mRNA vaccine penetration, which has utterly failed at preventing spread / breakthrough infections with omicron. It is looking like "superior" mRNA is as useless as traditional vaccines at preventing spread and comparable in preventing death, assuming developing literature that traditional Chinese vaccines has robust T-cell response for preventing severe cases. Which makes covid-0 the far superior choice for PRC, if it can be maintained. Simply no amount of vaccination will avert massive deaths in country of 1.4B that skews old and has marginal medical resources. Presently there's no better option than covid-0. Harsh lockdowns sucks for those going through it, but flip side is propaganda from overseas Chinese diaspora relaying the circus of western responses that's essentially resigning to herd immunity despite promise of mRNA magic of ending the pandemic. Omicron has completely vindicated PRC zero-covid strategy. Again, if it can be maintained.
Of course long term, herd immune countries can return to normal sooner. The path is harder for PRC. Who knows what the end game is, I think maybe hold out for hope that even milder variants will evolve and open up for herd immunity then. Either way, dodging original and delta strand was worth it considering lockdowns only ever affected a small fraction of the population after initial country wide quarantine effort. Even now most of PRC is relatively open.
Modeling is broken because it doesn't even try to predict the future, its sole purpose is to influence the future.
And that works well for them. Overpredict, change behaviours, claim it was the predictions and actions that changed behaviours and made the model wrong, not the fact that the model was just dead wrong to begin with, and on purpose.
Look no further than every single failed prediction by Imperial college london and Niell Ferguson.
The events are being held in other cities and will be attended only by a select few ultra-privileged CCP supporters and foreign dignitaries (see story below) … common foreigners are banned, the general citizenry is banned, no one in Xi’an was ever getting near the olympics.
Beijing’s excuse for lockdown is BS. The CCP is scared shitless of this virus.
https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/01/17/beijing-winter-olympi...
I have to say I’m surprised you subscribe to the CCP’s framing of their lockdowns.
This is simply a dick wagging contest, and the better China does, the more the western elites will be envious of China's ability to exert total control on its population.
I don't think this is a good thing. It's just how I see it as it happens.
The obvious answer is to buy local, buy once (quality), and make a small effort to keep a list of bad companies to not support. Whether that list is just China companies, leftist companies, DEI companies, or just companies that play politics, you have more power than you know. Losing 4% of sales is a big deal, especially if that money is going to more worthy companies.