I'm not sure how much of them are false positive, but it should be statistically insignificant, China does multiple testing in order to make sure almost all cases get caught and to get a more accurate number, and I recall those sent to quarantine isolation will still be tested for covid until they are cleared.
The higher officials in Shanghai would be removed after the entire lockdown is over, some of the lower officials have already been removed in the early weeks of the lockdown. The lockdown covid procedures are being reexamined and altered in real time, like in Shanghai at the moment.
Not sure if Xi's losing hearts and minds, it seems like the netizens are generally blaming the local government, and begging the central government to intervene, and I don't think the vaccination policy is managed or decided by Xi, but I do agree they at least need to do some coercive measures to make the elderly to vaccinate, the incentivization method didn't found much success.
I don't see them dropping the ball, it looks more like the population became complacent because of the previous success of zero covid. Back when HK got an outbreak, a lot of people started rushing to getting vaccine, so maybe using the fear of outbreak be useful in coercing them to take the 3rd dose.
Although even if they can get to 85%+ 3 dose vaccination rate, they still can't open up without massive consequences, like hospitals being overwhelmed, work disruption from covid, long covid cases and the few percentage of unvaccinated people in absolute numbers being too large getting severe symptom or deaths.
In my opinion, if China wants to live with covid, they'll need to do the following:
1. Mass produce RAT kits, KN95 mask, covid prevention and treatment medicine, then create mandates and distribution for them.
2. Make better use of Covid tracking app, like setting up checkpoints that prevent those who didn't took PRC test in the last few days from entering through locational and big data monitoring, which can help in spread out testing.
3. Have all workers in the essential works like logistics and farming be tested everyday, and streamline their access through the checkpoint idea above or lockdown, to keep disruption at minimum.
4. Allow self-isolation at home, supplying them with the covid medicine, air disinfectant machine and food delivery.
The goal isn't zero-covid, but to slow the spread enough that it becomes endemic and not overwhelm the healthcare service. The people who use the term endemic to describe Omicron is misusing it, the spread is still too fast and would likely return in waves again in the future. After successfully controlling the outbreaks, China should keep watch for future variants, and research whether the vaccine effectiveness wanes overtime, requiring newer vaccines or boosters.
