Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
FairAndUnbiased said:
The end goal will be to divide the world into those who surrender to coronavirus and have a much reduced quality of life, and those that listen to China and do it the Chinese way.
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Is this sarcasm?

Everyone knows lockdowns and masks are only temporary measures to minimize deaths long enough for the entire population to be vaccinated, since 99% of vaccinated do not die.

Once everyone vaccinated (including children) and nobody dies, who gives a shit about zero infections?

China already won the propaganda war on low deaths. Zero COVID once everyone is vaccinated is expensive and hurts Chinese GDP in the long term...

getready said:
Does this mean China will be closed off to the world and lockdowns and testing will a way of life for many years? Even with fully vaxxed population there will still be some infections, but with minor symptoms and much less deaths or serious illness.

If coronavirus isn't eradicated world wide, It will make things hard for China to just go at it alone unless it is fully closed off from outside but that is of course impossible.
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I agree....but it appears China is waiting until after the Olympics to issue a "live with it" message, preferably after entire population is vaccinated, including children.

FairAndUnbiased said:
COVID zero is the exact strategy to use against variants while herd immunity is the bad strategy. A mutation renders previous herd immunity less immune but quashing every case regardless of what it is by mass testing, quarantine and masking makes it so that it doesn't matter what the variant is.

If the rest of the world just deals with it, cool, they'll be buying Chinese PPE for a while as China races up the charts in life expectancy. Furthermore it is a gigantic propaganda victory and demonstration of how the Chinese system values life and health. It will mean that neutral third parties - the ones who are actually worthy of convincing - will naturally drift towards China since very few people agree with the idea that money is worth more than life.
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Yes it's a propaganda victory if China can keep low rates during Winter Olympics. It's too early for China to give up yet....children don't even have vaccine approval....Walvax mRNA can potential be available Q3 2021 or early 2022...and no booster is even approved. We are still in middle of pandemic, it's not over yet.
 
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Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Temstar said:
[Citation Needed], who's this "everyone" in everyone knows?
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The concept is basically "Flattening the Curve" that was widely popular in the beginning of pandemic.
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US only did half-hearted and half-assed lockdowns and restrictions, so it was not really successful in US compared to China.

China successfully "flattened the curve" and also "squashed the virus" as far as infections and death rates goes..

My point is.... mass vaccination will "squash the virus" as far as death rate is concerned..... mass vaccination still will not "squash the virus" as far as infections is concerned, there will always be endemic variants.....but who cares so long as you don't die. Once children have vaccine approval, everyone is vaccinated, and boosters are available, I don't think China should sacrifice it's economy in pursuit of utopia of zero infections. Zero deaths is the goal, not zero infection.

I also think a lot of China's "tough talk on zero COVID" has to do with upcoming Winter Olympics.... China cannot let it's guard down now, like the West wants it to do....
 
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Temstar

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
Phead128 said:
The concept is basically "Flattening the Curve" that was widely popular in the beginning of pandemic.
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US only did half-hearted and half-assed lockdowns and restrictions, so it was not really successful in US compared to China.

China successfully "flattened the curve" and also "squashed the virus" as far as infections and death rates goes..

My point is.... mass vaccination will "squash the virus" as far as death rate is concerned..... mass vaccination still will not "squash the virus" as far as infections is concerned, there will always be endemic variants.....but who cares so long as you don't die. Once children have vaccine approval, everyone is vaccinated, and boosters are available, I don't think China should sacrifice it's economy in pursuit of utopia of zero infections. Zero deaths is the goal, not zero infection.

I also think a lot of China's "tough talk on zero COVID" has to do with upcoming Winter Olympics.... China cannot let it's guard down now, like the West wants it to do....
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Again, where is the citation. AFAIK flatten the curve is a term that came up in the west, it was never in use in China. The goal in China has always been total victory over the virus. I see no reason to believe the current state of affairs cannot be sustained indefinitely. For majority of 2020 and 2021 so far the lives of Chinese people within China's borders is identical to pre-pandemic, the economy has been growing at more than 6% pa and I'm not seeing any appetite from the public to squander the fruit of victory so far achieved.

I recall March last year when rest of China (as in, other than Wuhan) stood down from highest state of alert when the government judged that it was safe to do so, everyone around the world was sure it was going to be a disaster yet it all went smoothly and no new outbreak occurred. I think that's proof enough that CPC, guided by its experts are excellent judge of risk/reward. I see no signals from CPC that they are considering opening up the country, certainly not with the current wave originating from Nanjing yet to completely die down and certainly not with US recording 6 digit confirmed cases a day.
 
HybridHypothesis

HybridHypothesis

Junior Member
Registered Member
There is ZERO justification for maintaining a zero cases regime for the indefinite future, since this disease is endemic throughout the rest of the world.

At worst, the world will be dealing with a slightly worse version of the flu every year (as Corona has displaced the majority of flu viruses). Meanwhile China will be doing sporadic lockdowns that disrupt supply chains over new variants again and again. How is this not detrimental to its long term economic position?

It is in fact conceivable that should the zero cases regime persist for too long that China ends up immunologically naive to the new strains while the rest of the world gets some sort of herd immunity, so the price to pay will end up being far greater.

Once the world accepts that coronavirus will NEVER be eradicated and Chinese vaccination rates are higher than they are now, China should open up and let it spread.
 
S

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
I think we need to recognize there are some huge differences in both situations and possible outcomes in China vs. the USA.

China lockdowns are not the same as western lockdowns. The security apparatus in China is able to lockdown to district level. This is also because the low number of cases allows it to due such precise contact tracing.

While it's probably impossible to lockdown to that level in other countries, a low number can still allow for effective contact tracing and isolation.

This discussion is only happening because the USA is so totally out of control, totally beyond any contact tracing, isolation, or anything. One thing we have to realize, 50%, 60% fully vaccinated is a joke. Israel went from dozens of cases to thousands in a month. USA went from a few thousand to double that in weeks.

It would be more appropriate to look at more vaccinated countries to get a better idea.

Looking at UAE which has ~75% full vaccination, cases have been stable at 1500 cases per day for about a month. It has fallen a bit in the past week. This is a country that takes in a lot of Indian labour, so Delta is a major threat.

Ontario has recently opened up more (not fully) allowing sporting events like the BLUE JAYS and indoor dining. There has been doubling in cases from 150 to 300. 2/3 of the new cases are amongst the unvaccinated. The biggest test will be schools opening in two weeks.

Some other things to be considered...

1. We are still on the first generation of vaccines. Sinovac said they are testing the next gen, and I think Pfizer also made a similar announcement.

2. We are still learning about the virus as we go along. We have been outsmarted by the emergence of the Delta variant. We are only starting to learn about ideas such as mixing vaccines. If we think of the Sputnik V regimen, this is something similar to the Russian idea.

3. Travel restrictions remain in place for a great deal of the world.

As mentioned above, there is no great impetus for China to open up right now since the economy is running smoothly and point 3 is still in effect, so it's too early to say what "total victory" or "living with the virus" looks like right now. There probably won't be a zero cases forever, but is it going to be 100 cases? 50 cases? Once we stop seeing mass hospitalizations, or stories like "X place runs out of oxygen" (as was happening in parts of Indonesia and India), we will probably feel more confident. From the looks of it, we will need at least a 2nd gen vaccine to come out for that to happen.
 
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Temstar said:
The goal in China has always been total victory over the virus.
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Eradication was the original goal based on our limited understanding of 'novel coronavirus' in early 2020. We are learning more and more about novel virus everyday, including mutation, transmission, and vaccine efficacy.

'Zero COVID Deaths' is a more realistic goal that China will (later) adopt once everyone is vaccinated.

Temstar said:
I see no reason to believe the current state of affairs cannot be sustained indefinitely.
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I agree that China should continue lockdowns and restrictions until after:
  • Winter Olympics are finished,
  • mRNA vaccines by WalVax are available,
  • children's vaccine is available, booster shots are available,
  • and over 80-90% of population is fully vaccinated.
Followed by a phased gradual transition to 'living with virus' with booster shots.

But indefinitely??? don't get me started.... I can tell you a million reasons why indefinite Zero Infections is a bad strategy.
 
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
This is my biggest worry:

If everyone in China is fully vaccinated, and China (forever) continues sporadic lockdowns to achieve 'zero Infections' goal....forever.....

then it's trivially easy for US CIA to cause outbreaks, just to shutdowns Chinese cities. It only takes like a dozen cases to lockdown a major metropolis like Nanjing or Yangzhou.

Just think US CIA can seriously fuck up the Chinese economy via endless lockdowns forever... a truly effective 'economic containment of China that's better than any US tech bans or US trade war can achieve. Lockdowns will just encourage manufacturing to move to different countries, depleting Chinese of resources and jobs.
 
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