No, you don't wait for things like that; the CCP doesn't push blame or responsibility on the people. A very small minority protested; the majority of the people expect the CCP to do things according to science and data instead of riots. The excuse that street riots forced a bad opening would not be accepted by the people at all.
Agree with you here. They’ve moved so quickly to reopen you have to suspect they were waiting for a political justification and found one in the form of people protesting.
When the numbers get higher, it's not limited to super old people with co-morbidities anymore. As the infection rate substantially increases into the millions and tens/hundreds of millions, you'll see all kinds of people be affected or die; young people with long COVID and very valuable scientists in their 60's start to get badly affected or die are probably the next most likely things to happen if the re-opening is bad.
Well, Chinese media outlets such as Global Times and local authorities have been parroting how Omicron isn’t that bad and is flu like and how Long Covid isn’t that widespread. You might want to read this thread thoroughly because you clearly missed a lot of news. The Chinese are radically changing their stance as we speak.
I didn't miss any of that. I read all pages before responding. This is what they say and it's clearly something to sooth panic and justify reopening. The fact is that there are still 2,600 deaths a week in the US and not all of them are old/unvaccinated people with comorbidities. They can't say, "We made these calculations and only the oldest weakest should die within these numbers so we find that acceptable." They need to tell people it's safe so they understand the government's decision to open up. I hope it's mostly true but it's definitely not going to affect every person in a mild way. There will be people who are severely affected and some who will die; the question is just how low that is and if that is low enough in a population the size of China to prevent mass deaths.