Just in: Zhejiang Publicity, the WeChat account of the Publicity Department of the Party’s Zhejiang Provincial Committee, published an article on China's covid control titled "'People first' is not 'Covid control first'" “人民至上”不是“防疫至上”. A thread on its highlights:
As some netizens said: If the 1st year (of the epidemic) is panic, with some a little bit secretly delighted for being able to rest at home or a while, the 2nd year began to look confused, with people hoping that the epidemic quickly end. The 3rd year is about some complaints, (people wondering) when is the end. In addition, some places have recently used the name of epidemic prevention to "increase the level (of control)", abusing their power and making things difficult for the masses, resulting in epidemic prevention becoming out of shape, and in some cases, while not saying they were implementing restrictions & control but they were actually doing it, disregarding the interests of the masses & people's demands, & arbitrarily interrupting the normal production and living order. It damaged the image of the Party and the government & hurt the masses. There are even some people who take the opportunity to make money from the epidemic. Compared to the epidemic, these phenomena break people’s hearts. The ensuing people’s feelings of helplessness, tired & even anger are understandable.
Epidemic prevention & control is to prevent the virus, not to prevent people; there is no such thing as "epidemic prevention first" but "people first". No matter what kind of prevention & control measures are taken, they should be aimed at returning society to normal ASAP and getting life back on track as soon as possible. All options are "bridges" and "boats" to this goal, not simply to restrict people, regardless of the cost of blind brute force.
During this period, the World Cup in Qatar is in full swing. The crowd in audience didn’t wear masks, look at the scene of the revelry, everything seems to be no different from before the epidemic. Some people ask: "Many countries in the world now have everything as usual. They 'lie flat' and they survived. If they can 'let it go', why can't we?"
Let's look at the confirmed cases first. Up to now, there are 636 million new confirmed cases & over 6.6 million cumulative deaths worldwide, with 230,000 new confirmed cases and 428 deaths in a recent day. Among them, Japan, which has 126 million people, sees 98,000 new confirmed cases per day; South Korea has a population of more than 50 million people. It sees 47,000 new confirmed cases per day.
Second, regarding medical resources, this year China has 6.7 medical beds per 1,000 population, compared with 12.65 in South Korea, 12.63 in Japan and 7.82 in Germany in 2020. In 2020, China has 4.5 ICU beds per 100,000 people, Germany 28.2, the U.S. 21.6, France 16.4 and Japan 13.8, a global average of 10. Earlier this year, covid critically ill patients occupied 32.7% of the total ICU capacity in the U.S., and about 7 ICU beds per 100,000 people were crowded by covid critically ill patients, the number of which has exceeded the total number of ICU beds per 100,000 people in China. As of the end of 2021, China's population aged 60 & above reached 267 million, & the population of children exceeded 250 million, so the size of "the elderly & the children" group is huge.
According to the latest data from Singapore, the mortality rate of infection among the elderly aged 60-69, 70-79 and 80 years old and above with vaccine protection is 0.014%, 0.064% and 0.54% respectively; the mortality rate of infection among the elderly in the three age groups without vaccine protection is 0.19%, 0.29% and 2.5% respectively. And the three age groups of elderly people who have not completed vaccination in China are about 22.64 million, 16.16 million and 14 million respectively.
If we completely lift all the restrictions now, according to the estimated mortality rate of infection in Singapore, the number of deaths in our country will reach about 600,000 for the elderly over 60 years old only. China's social system, history and culture, values and ethics do not allow us to watch our fathers and grandfathers and children face death threats and simply give up. For example, in some Western countries, hundreds of people died in a single nursing home from an epidemic.
By understanding this, we can also understand our country's efforts to contain the epidemic. It is selective forgetfulness to envy the freedom and revelry of Western countries, but ignore the painful price they have paid. To talk about the "control" & "lifting restrictions" in isolation from China's national conditions and development reality is an empty proposition...If we compare the epidemic to a rough river, in order to reach the other side, some countries choose to go into the water bare-chested, and let some people become sacrificial lambs, while China chooses to ride out the storm together, using a big boat to give everyone a chance to survive. When the big boat is difficult and gradually leaning towards the other side of the river, if blindly envious of those who have landed on the other side of the river and no longer work together to row the boat and choose to risk jumping ship, the results of the many efforts we made before may be lost...
Recently, the prevention and control policy deviated, deformed, out of shape, and even some tragedies which should not happen happened in some places in the implementation of the "dynamic zero-covid" process due to the problem of understanding, capacity, methods, and even the interests behind the problem. The central government has set down the general policy of "dynamic zero-covid" and 20 measures to optimize prevention and control, but some localities have different interpretations, which greatly reduces the authority of the central policy.
In some places, in the name of epidemic prevention, people's livelihood and economy are taken lightly, and some even tacitly agree that "only the COVID-019 is a disease, other diseases are irrelevant" in the implementation of policies, distorting the concept of "life first".
Some of them have added levels of restrictions to epidemic prevention, without laws and rules in sight, and even come up with various tricks to "deal" with the masses, breaking people’s hearts. (more to add in another thread later)
