A few of us has said since the beginning that mass lockdowns is not the right policy for omicron, and China will likely loosen restrictions after the Part Congress. Thats exactly what happened. The recent protests only expedited what was already in progress.
I have already said multiple times that China would loose restrictions in late Spring or early Summer. By then, new vaccines and medicine would be ready and can be rollout. Given what happened in HK, you are delusional to think China could reopen during the outbreak in Shanghai. Party Congress or not, China won't accept 1.6 millions deaths so you can have you so called freedom.
Upholding zero-Covid policies became a performance indicator for local officials before the Party Congress. Omicron was portrayed as a huge threat that will jeopardize social stability, but in the end it was the lockdowns that caused exactly that.
If Omicron isn't a threat, then why HK has over 8000 deaths. Why Japan and Taiwan have a complete breakdown in their health care system. The speed of Omicron spreading is a very big problem. Most health care system just can't cope with such increase of patients. Western countries already have millions most vulnerable deaths o they can cope with it. Other countries have more favorable demographics to cope with Omicron. But that isn't the case for most East Asian countries, that's why even after reopening Japan, Taiwan and South Korea still have many restrictions.
I have zero sympathetic for those college kids. They are a bunch of crybabies that crying for movies, travels and partying. I only support reopening due the fact that many sectors have been hard hit by zero covid and under tremendous pressure especially many border cities.
But who's going to go against Xi and put their job on the line, who dares...unless of course you are a loyalist and can get promoted even if you mess up.
Xi saves millions of lives by imposing zero covid. Who is going to get blamed for millions deaths in the West. Nobody is held responsible or accountable. Of course, you don't care. You only care about your little freedom.
China is now finally implementing what many experts have recommended for over a year. But many that spoke out against continued zero covid for omicron were initially censored. Fundamentally, no new breakthroughs have been made against the virus. Existing vaccines are all only partially effective. People will get sick, most will not die, and will not result in social upheaval. China is opening up because Xi said so.
The so called experts can't prevent 8000 deaths in HK. They better shut up as 8000 deaths in March 2022 would equal to 1.6 millions deaths in China. Are these experts going to be held accountable? No, these so called experts would just disappear and reappear a few months later with a different talking points. Hong Kong has too many of these so called experts that we called them big mouth do nothing and ever changing talking points losers.
The only opportunity that China could try is to look into a window of reopening after they ended lockdown in Shanghai which is around June. If they imposed mandatory vaccination for elderly, then they could possibly try to loose restrictions during November or December when most elderly should get their booster shots. However, they choose not to impose mandatory vaccination so they only increase vaccination for 60 or above by 10% to over 90% and 80 or above by 20%.
Any delusional people who think China could reopen any earlier than that is just delusional and have total no regard of millions of deaths due to their own selfish reasons.
