The rest of the world seems to have gone all-in with vaccines and are now moving away from lockdowns. Why are China sticking to the lockdown route?
The lockdown they are having is horrible tho. My coworker is based there and what I’ve heard from her is scary. She wants to move out of China when she can.
We dealt with covid in a reasonable, science-first way, which also allowed us to have the freedom to not get vaccinated, talk about what's happening, etc. Sounds much more ideal than the shitshow going on in Shanghai currently.
Edit: there’s not a lot being talked about in terms of multiple infections over time. It’s not that the MRNA vaccines are effective it’s that the West pivoted to an entirely different public health policy.
AU and NZ lockdowns were less ugly than this Shanghai description though. I went outside to cycle and run literally every day of the NSW 2021 lockdown.
If we consider mRNA, or any vaccine, to be a gene therapy it would because the immune system has to modify its own DNA to generate antibodies. But we might then call the common cold a gene therapy or becoming allergic to something an accidental gend therapy. Obviously this is silly.
The boosters have been extremely effective at preventing severe infections, which is plenty useful for public health even if it isn't as good as preventing transmission entirely.
Edit: I am not antivax. I believe you should get all the shots even a second booster despite all its shortcomings.
The difference in effort between keeping that kind of curve flat and ZeroCovid is small. I would even assume that ZeroCovid is easier than flattening the curve. While ZeroCovid is not an exit strategy in some areas it works better while waiting for an effective vaccine or some other exit strategy. So presumably that's what they do right now.
The rest of the world is not "all-in" with vaccines. Vaccines are combined with waves of infection for the unvaccinated and vaccinated which lead to the death of 0.1% to 0.6% of the population in many countries. With each infection the immunity rises - leading to less severe infections in the future. The deaths are a high price to pay but many people think it's worth it to have a somewhat normal life again.
As we know now, China was not very wise with their choice of vaccine and seemingly has no exit plan. Omicron is spreading very fast and due to a low prior immunity it would put an immense load on their medical system for months.
Here's the link to an interactive graph showing the death rate per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
So the question still hasn't been answered. Why is Mainland China insisting on pursuing this inferior strategy? The hard-lockdown zero-Covid low-vaccination approach has been shown to be inferior to the alternative approach of ensuring 99% of the elderly are vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna, and then allowing society to open up once this is achieved. My understanding is their vaccination rates haven't gone up much since this outbreak started, which signals that they are not intent on changing course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_National_Congress_of_the_...
Ironically, a very similar situation played out in Wuhan . By mid December 2019 it was very clear that a deadly respiratory disease is in the community but the politicians were too preoccupied with the ongoing provincial party congress. Nobody in power was willing to take a bullet for announcing a pandemic until their posts are confirmed and secure. The rest is history.
Barring major catastrophe, thing will continue to drift in the current direction until the Congress is "concluded in triumph" and the new government sworn in. So probably no sooner than October/November.
This is why the figures out of China is looking too good to be true right now with 150K+ recent cases, very low intensive care admission and only 2 deaths so far(both had very serious underlying conditions including end stage renal failure and cerebral infarction). One might argue that the officials have an incentive to hide the true figures to save face, but keeping the numbers low does not necessarily make them look any better as the lockdown appears overly harsh and disproportionate to the risks. The only options is to try and return to the zero covid days, no plan B allowed.
Really? The data I've seen (googling and on social media) suggest that there is no change in the vaccination rate.
http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqjzqk/list_gzbd.shtml
The economist has some aged grouped vaccination data from the end of March that actually shows pretty good vaccine coverage for the 60-79 age group. I couldn't find a source but the numbers are consistent with a prior press release.
https://www.economist.com/china/2022/04/02/why-so-many-elder...
Being rich or poor doesn't have too much to do with it. Hong Kong is badly affected because it has a very high population density combined with low vaccination rates.
Poorer countries faired better against the disease itself: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-confirmed-deaths-of...
And it's not population density either, otherwise Bangladesh and India would be leading the packs in deaths, but they're comfortably in the middle while much of Europe pushes the top.
Where this falls apart is in government reaction to the disease, that has absolutely eviscerated the middle and poor classes.
What seems strange is that they haven't been able to quickly make an mRNA vaccine of their own. Supposedly South Africa has managed to pull it off, and I'd guess China has a much more advanced research/production capacity. Though it's also very possible it's happening and I just haven't heard of it :)
I wonder if they could license the technology then produce it themselves. I believe this is what India has been doing?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30967224
Which makes sense for the CCP. If everyone gets the western vaccine then it makes the CCP look bad.
Ramping up production was a problem in the beginning but now it should not be a problem to produce enough shots to supply China. Even a single shot mRNA would improve immunity by a lot when combined with other vaccines. If China had ordered it in 2020 they would have received multiple doses per person by now.
I have no idea why mRNA failed in China.
Classic case of "not invented here" syndrome?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-12/billionai...
That's not quite what you describe, but they could have poured resources into manufacturing the licensed vaccine instead of outright blocking its use.
The numbers you listed may seem scary at face value but viewed in the right context including compared to other mortality risks like flu and inhumane lockdown conditions where some people run out of food and other basic supplies or turn suicidal, the numbers do not support the conclusion that lockdown is the best way forward.
As long as they can keep censoring angry citizens, and as long as they can keep the cccp in power, as far as they are concerned their covid-policy is working
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/opinions/china-xi-zero-covid-...
TLDR: Xi Jin Ping will soon be up for his third term, and he has staked his legacy at least in part on how well China has handled COVID. There will be no changes in China's COVID policy anytime soon.
That really depends on what's your personal definition of "keeping everything locked down".
European countries like Spain and Italy showed that lockdowns work quite well in quickly halving infection rates with negligible externalities, but their lockdown focused on non-essential work and everyone was allowed to do basic provisioning things such as going to the supermarket.
Also, if I recall correctly Spain also had in place a kind of stimulus program where people could apply for a guaranteed minimum income scheme.
It boggles the mind how some people conflate a quarantine with solitary confinement under house arrest where people are left to starve to death.
Almost half the restaurants are just gone, other sectors are absolutely devastated too.
The hospitality industry is absolutely fucked, while most hotels still operate they usually have less than half the staff on payroll they used to have before lockdowns.
Because of the economic damage, the security situation in the city has gone to hell. Violent robberies are way up, it’s now normal to get robbed at knifepoint while driving your car. Cars with broken windows are everywhere.
I hate this trend of downplaying how harsh the lockdowns were, even in Western countries. If you think they were worth it because you personally put a high importance on longevity, fine, that’s a legitimate policy position (though I disagree with it). But what happened in Spain and Italy was a catastrophic disruption to normal life by any reasonable standard.
I lived in Spain through the pandemic. I saw from my apartment the army trucks racing across Madrid, the police cars with loudspeakers advising everyone to stay indoors, and army patrols going through the city to enforce the lockdown.
Do you actually know what was a catastrophic disruption to normal life by any reasonable standard? Having to commandeer the local ice rink to have a place to store all the excess dead bodies, and setting up a huge makeshift hospital in the city's expo hall to accommodate the patients.
Knowing that, do you have any idea what finally managed to reign in the outbreaks under control? Lockdowns. Two weeks since their onset, infection rates dropped to residual.
Don't talk about things you know nothing about.
- https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature...