China opening up again

[StringJunky]

Do you think they've made the right decision? Is there any other way they could have done it, apart from more gradually? It looks we are going into a new episode seeing China trying to renormalize its activities. I'm wondering about this on social, political and epidemiological levels.

Edited January 8, 2023 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

The biggest mistake was not to promote effective vaccines, while they had the outbreaks largely under control.

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, CharonY said:

The biggest mistake was not to promote effective vaccines, while they had the outbreaks largely under control.

Their vaccines or the West's?

[CharonY]

19 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Their vaccines or the West's?

Effective is the keyword here. But that said prior to Omicron three dosages e.g. sinovac protected fairly well against severe disease. However, protection was lower with only one or two doses when compared to mRNA vaccines (not sure how it did to e.g. AZ vaccine, for example).

It did perform worse for preventing infections, but the ongoing variants none are likely to do well.

Either way, especially the elderly are undervaccinated.

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Effective is the keyword here. But that said prior to Omicron three dosages sinovac protected fairly well against severe disease. However, protection was lower with only one or two doses.

Either way, especially the elderly are undervaccinated.

Right. Is it relatively safer now to expose the population compared to last year, given Omicron seems to be losing virulence with its increasing infectivity?

Edited January 8, 2023 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

No. At least not from a public health perspective.

Think of it that way, if the risk of hospitalization is reduced e.g. tenfold, but the spread is tenfold higher, on average your hospital will be equally full.

Even worse higher spread means that they are more likely to reach vulnerable folks. At the same time, containing spread got harder. Omicron waves almost nowhere died down as the previous waves.

So even with more severe outcomes, there were more tools including contact tracing that could make sense if implemented correctly. These are mostly gone now, except vaccination and masking.

As a result in many regions more folks died during the Omicron than in the previous years (if they had it under control pre-omicron that is) China is going to see the same.

Individual risk is lower, population risk is potentially higher.

[StringJunky]

Right, cheers. If it was us in a reversed situation i.e. if the US or UK in solation acted like China, what do you think our experts would advise to renormalize our associations with the rest of the world, given there aren't the same ideological/political constraints present?

Edited January 8, 2023 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

Sorry, not quite clear what the precise scenario is. A country that is undervaccinated and opening up? Because that scenario has already happened but the effects varied quite bit depending on country.

Or if it is about new mutations, every country is happily producing them right now.

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Sorry, not quite clear what the precise scenario is. A country that is undervaccinated and opening up? Because that scenario has already happened but the effects varied quite bit depending on country.

Or if it is about new mutations, every country is happily producing them right now.

I'll think about it later. Need sleep... it's silly o clock!

[CharonY]

Same here. See you later, alligator.

[toucana]

 

A BBC report today says that almost 90% of the population of Henan 河南; - China’s third most populous province -  have now contracted COVID.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-64208127

This equates to almost 88.5 million people. Ths figure was disclosed by a provincial official called Kan Quancheng at a press conference, and it stands in stark contrast to official Covid figures issued by the central government which say that just 120,000 people in a country of 1.4 billion have been infected since China changed its ‘Zero Covid ‘ policies in December.

The same report mentions that Chinese officials have declined to include Pfizer’s antiviral Covid medicine Paxlovid in its basic medical insurance schemes as a result of high prices  quoted by the US firm. The drug temporarily covered by Chinese healthcare insurance schemes until 31 March has been in high demand since China’s Covid cases surged last month.

China abruptly abandoned its ‘Zero Covid’ lockdown policy in mid-December because it had become politically untenable, and increasingly unenforceable as well. There was an interesting story by CNN last month about an emigre blogger using the the handle Li Lao Shi (Teacher Li) - who became an unofficial clearing house for information about the remarkable wave of protests that broke out across China in mid-November.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/10/china/china-twitter-teacher-li-profile-intl-hnk/index.html

The blogger says that even he was stunned to receive videos of mass protests on Urumqi Road - one of the major streets in Shanghai - with protestors calling for the overthrow of Xi Jin Ping and openly defying a mass police presence in doing so. Similar reports were flooding in from many other parts off China, including the capital Beijing, the southern metropolis of Guangchou, and that of Chengdu in the west.

The Chinese authorities have always been highly sensitive to the possibility of a complete collapse of central government in their country, It has happened many times in their history, most recently in the warlord period of the 1920s and 1930s. China’s constituent provinces are so large that many of them could easily form independent countries - Manchuria alone is the size of France and Germany put together, and Sichuan the second largest inland province in China would become the 8th largest country in the world if it declared independence.

The most recent change of policy by China on its Covid policies is basically driven by Realpolitik and pragamatism. They had no alternative. There were real fears that the Chinese Communst party would lose social control of entire provinces if they did not change course.

Edited January 9, 2023 by toucana
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