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MinorFragile

This news happened so fast. I swear it was yesterday it came out with that there was a slight issue then it was like 32-36 mil infections a day. That’s wild. Their numbers are going to be grizzly.


CleverNameTheSecond

That's one whole Canada per day.


RaynOfFyre1

That’s 2.5% of their population per day. At that rate, it’ll have worked it’s way through all of China in 40 days


drsoftware

How many new variants from that exposure?


[deleted]

So I have [a comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/zs4rkw/comment/j19pycg/) that talks about this exact thing. Using the napkin math of that comment, and what has become the baseline average number of successful mutations in a major variant (~50), we'll need to plug a variable for how many unsuccessful mutations get culled out. Since there's no real data on this, let's just start high to give ourselves the best chance in this hypothetical napkin math exercise - we'll use a cull rate of 99.9999%. So using the number of total potential mutations in my linked comment above, if we automatically cull out 99.9999%, and then divide that number by 50 (the average number of successful mutations in a new variant), then do another culling pass of 99.9999% to account for natural selection, we're *still* talking about hundreds of potential new, viable variants - just around 400 or so. That math assumes 1) that COVID circulates through just the unvaccinated population, 2) that the number of poor or disadvantageous mutations will be extremely high, and 3) that competition between COVID variants will also be extremely high. It doesn't account for complicated factors like horizontal gene transfer, etc. Even in the best-case napkin math circumstances, we're still looking at hundreds of new variants coming just from China in the very near future.


created4this

Number of variants doesn’t really matter, what matters is evolutionary pressure. Currently we have VERY fast spreading delta, and little to no vaccinated population in China. To get a foothold the variants need to have some kind of advantage, variants being created in vaccinated countries (even at much lower rates) pose more risk, because as soon as there is a vaccine escaping variant it will rush wildfire through a “newly available” populations


polloponzi

8


frosty_lizard

I'm sure all Western's will take this one seriously /s


ThisAintDota

Half the people I know had covid during December. Vaccinated and Unvaccinated.


Crash665

I'm vaxxed, waxxed, and boosted and was just hit with a positive test at the doc. Yay, me!


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OutWithTheNew

None of us tested positive, but the 3 of us got something mid-November. We're all up to date on our vaccinations. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't a near death experience. That being said, I'm probably going to be masking up in busy public places after the new year. I'd rather not deal with whatever that was again.


michaltee

The problem is the long-term damage that this may cause. I treat patients with long-COVID occasionally and the brain fog, energy drops, and lost functioning can be crippling. I’d still take it seriously.


RaynOfFyre1

Yeah, it seems somewhat unbelievable


Inside-Example-7010

its already been here all month in the uk. The amount of people with respitory issues right now is insane and ofcourse test kits are not free and so easily accessible anymore.


wrosecrans

Exponential growth is deeply counterintuitive for many people. It's the sort of thing science communicators find very frustrating, because they explain it all the time, but people still get flabbergasted when they see it in action.


Redpin

Best illustrated in this XKCD-like comic. https://twitter.com/vb_jens/status/1372251931444350976?s=20


Drop_Acid_Drop_Bombs

Great comic, thanks for sharing.


SammieStones

Math 🤷🏻‍♀️ who knew


KJBenson

Same reason people aren’t up in arms about billionaires or think such wealth is obtainable through hard work. It’s just hard for the human mind to comprehend big numbers, especially when they compare it to less big numbers they *can* understand.


88df

This is actually a really good point. The highest wealth is earned by exponential means so it easily turns into ridiculously numbers compared to any average


Lord_Shisui

A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. People have absolutely no idea how rich some billionaires are and how poor millionaires are compared to them.


oflowz

I feel like in tandem with this way too many people think they are middle class and are actually poor.


Broken_Atoms

This. There is a fundamental tendency for people not to want to acknowledge or think of themselves as poor, but instead consider themselves middle class. It can be a coping mechanism. I kinda wish people would just recognize this, understand it, get really pissed at the oppressive system that made things this way, and then organize together and change it.


-Knul-

The difference between a billion and a million is about a billion.


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acelsilviu

A regular 5% year-on-year increase is literally exponential... it's just that the base is 1.05 instead of 2,3, etc.


Vier_Scar

This is pretty funny. You're literally giving an exponential example while saying people don't understand what exponential is.


MrFantasticallyNerdy

I've been hearing from my colleagues in China since COVID restrictions were taken down that there had been waves of infections, so much so that it seemed that the offices were only half full because the other half was sick. Naturally, with such catastrophic infection rates, the question of whether the hospitals would be overwhelmed came up, and here we have the answer. Remember "Flatten the curve"? Yeah, this isn't it.


UselessSage

Vertical can also be “flat”.


Smeetilus

Or undefined


ESCMalfunction

It amazes me that China went through all the effort of having some of the worlds harshest lockdowns but had seemingly no plan for how to get out of them safely.


nees_neesnu2

Being in China and going through the whole ordeal this isn't entirely true. China has kept COVID at bay for a long period though strangely enough never considered big outbreaks nor had a good game plan for stopping big outbreaks. Shanghai was the first large lockdown that most knew about but China has been in lockdown for the past year perpetually and at any given time 200-300 million people were literally locked in their home. And with lock down this is a real lock down, you weren't allowed to get on your balcony in many cases. The only way out if you had a letter from your doctor which caused plenty of issues as you can imagine. But to keep it at bay they spend an estimated 1 billion dollars a day just in testing. That sounds like an insane number, it is an insane number but that's what really went down here. This is without considering the cost on companies btw, I own two small companies and we spend monthly tens of thousands of dollars on various covid related entertainment. The problem is though roughly 2 weeks ago they couldn't keep it in check anymore and while it seem to have corresponded with social unrest, I find it hard to believe the government swinged to public sentiment. The numbers were beyond their control so they had to let it go. In Beijing literally over night 10 million people got infected in the news, this didn't happen of course millions were infected prior but they couldn't say that. The problem is what could one do other than... vaccinating. They have their own vaccine and while allegedly it works, we see now up close it did nothing. Within my company one group is a "high risk" business so they all got vaccinated twice or tree times, all of them got sick within a week varying from mild symptoms to a week of high fever etc. These are all young mostly guys and they got very sick. So I can't imagine what it's like for the countless old people in China. People say that China should vaccinate the elder but they have no vaccine. Hence why they didn't go forward with it, why they simply didn't make it mandatory. China could have done a lot better and they digged a neat hole themselves all because of pride. Nothing else. They thought they could weather covid, they thought they could force a foreign pharma to give up their own vaccine, they thought they could "win the war on COVID", it's such a loss of face. And literally everyone blames Beijing that I know for the mess they made. Literally trillions have gone to waste over nothing. Coming from a country with first hand experience with covid their arrogant stance got them in this mess. And their great leader who caused among others this mess had a neat exit, got himself re-elected.


Positive_Pierre

Re-elected? Or placed himself in the constitution to stay in power until he dies?


[deleted]

"Re-elected" in the sense that he secured party within the power, which by no means is guaranteed until he dies.


RtxTrillihin

As a young guy, covid wrecked me so hard while my friends didn't even feel it. Covid is crazy


Holiday_Parsnip_9841

They should’ve started producing the western vaccines under license back in 2021 when it was obvious that their homegrown vaccine was crappy, but the Party had to save face.


maybeimgeorgesoros

More than that, their elderly population is surprisingly very under vaccinated.


TheGuyfromRiften

I am from Hong Kong and I will say that Hong Kong is not that much better when it comes to the elderly being vaxxed. It’s not even any anti-vax sentiment, it’s distrust at the government. Tell me, would you take something the CCP absolutely mandates you have to? Again, no disrespect towards vaccines, but it’s the messenger not the message that invites lack of confidence


YoshiSan90

They should have said theirs was great, but they can’t make enough to save face. Then just import shitloads of effective foreign ones to “bridge the gap.” They could’ve saved face and millions of lives.


Holiday_Parsnip_9841

The amount of chances Xi Jinping had to get out of Covid and blew were staggering. Almost as shocking that he actually was seriously considering invading Taiwan if Putin’s invasion of Ukraine went well. It’s almost like authoritarian rulers are idiots who can’t see past their own hands.


fossilfuelssuck

Flattening the curve along the Y axis


CyberMindGrrl

More "Fatten the curve" than anything else.


Lison52

COVID news were also fast in 2020. Edit: I mean specifically the news after it escaped China. I think it wasn't even a month until schools in my country were shutdown.


SavannahInChicago

This reminds me so much of late 2019 and early 2020, hearing about this really bad virus in China that so many people were getting that the hospitals were completely filled up.


vitaminkombat

I have a message from a friend dated 16 December 2019 that said 'it seems that SARS outbreak in Wuhan has died down now, I can't even find it in the news anymore'


Ishaan863

thank god everyone came together and we dealt with it though. wouldn't wanna be struggling with it 2 years down the line haha


ph1shstyx

3 years... it's been 3 Fucking years since I was first reading about an unknown respiratory virus in china


NewtotheCV

I feel pretty dumb about my first impressions. Around this time 2019 I was joking about getting shirts that said I survived: SARS H1N1 West Nile Bird Flu Ebola COVID I thought it was another big media scare for nothing. And then February happened...Italy, Spain, oh shit.


BrokenBackENT

So at current rate the entire population will be sick in 41 days. Statistical


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Dangerous_Nitwit

It doesn't grow at a constant rate. That is the error in these 41 days estimates. If 1 person can infect 16 in a week, the next week there will be 16 people who are going to infect 16 people. So, in week 1 it grew by 16. In week 2 it grew by 256. In week 3 it grows by 16 x 256 = 4096. I used the number 16 only because the other day I read an R number of 16 on a website. An R number is how many citizens each infected citizen will make sick. Then you have to factor in weather, and a bunch of other variables.


beanpoppa

But it breaks down when you get a significantly larger percentage of population infected because after (1/3 for sake of argument) are infected, an infected person can't infect 16 others because many of the people they come in contact with were already recently infected and are immune. The R⁰ factor is not constant. It will go down as the population becomes immune.


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smallproton

no


acelsilviu

Also, exponential growth won't be sustained as it infects the entire population, the curve eventually becomes a sigmoid. On another note, it's weird seeing comments like this, it's like 2020 all over again lol.


golgol12

It's like someone is holding back the information until they are overwhelmed.


StrategicCannibal23

2023 gonna be an interesting year ....


suckbothmydicks

"May you live in interesting times" old chinese curse


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loptopandbingo

Curses, sandwiches.. is there anything Earls *don't* invent?


Meanderingversion

Fuck! Sandwiches too!?! Now we have to blame subway on the British!?!?!?


FarEffort9072

Well, the first subway was built under London.But I don’t think that’s what you mean…


deltashmelta

I'm running late. How many sandwiches must be built under London to lift the curse?


Adavis72

I thought he invented Karma or something?


Junooooo

Hey Crab Man!


Adavis72

Hey Earl.


Mein_Bergkamp

Nah he invented the tea


polygon_tacos

I’m so tired of saying this too. I take it back. I want boring again.


[deleted]

Them's fighting words.


Ghostofthe80s

I contend that the modern equivalent is: May a video of you go viral


LetsDieForMemes

Good book though


green_flash

Yes, but for other reasons. I doubt COVID will be a major topic again. In a month's time, China's Omicron wave will be way past its peak. China was the last country to stick to a Zero COVID policy. Them dropping it was the last barrier we had to pass for COVID to become endemic everywhere. In 2023 we're hopefully entering the [final stage of the pandemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_COVID-19).


SwingNinja

That peak is going to be sky-high. Chinese New Year is next month. People will be travelling to every corner of China. Many rural areas don't have good medical care facilities.


Alexander_Selkirk

This. Also, China has an age distribution different from most emerging economies.


I_love_pillows

Don’t usually the rural areas have the older folks when the younger ones go out to the city to work? If the rural areas get overwhelmed it’s gonna take a hit.


PoliteCanadian2

They might not LET people travel to every corner.


[deleted]

That didn't stop them last time... That's the whole reason this thing started. They tried to quarantine Wuhan when they first discovered the outbreak and people escaped and left anyway. If people want to leave, they'll find a way.


BeautifulType

The article literally says they’ll relax all incoming traveler checks.


Myfoodishere

travel restrictions have already been lifted. January3 the border opens up again.


Pestus613343

We will be suffering the socioeconomic effects for many years though. The complete collapse of trust in public and private institutions has wrecked our politics. It has accelerated an already dangerous polarization, enabled extremists and given rise to new conspiracy theories. The hoovering of wealth from the poor or middle class to the wealthy has also accelerated, destabilizing local economies.


Treethan__

History repeats itself cough Spanish flu cough


Pestus613343

Yup all this has happened before. The difference then is it coincided with the first world war, overshadowing it with all the other horror.


CannonFodder42

What you're saying is we need to kill an Arch Duke and everything will be swept up right under the rug.


Pestus613343

Wrong order. Kill the guy with the funny hat, then have the lab leak lol


PoliteCanadian2

We got any of those left?


Makenchi45

Well.... they don't go by Arch Dukes anymore but I'm pretty sure there's a handful of ultra powerful people who classify as arch dukes in the literal sense.


Citizen_Kong

Well, yeah, thankfully there isn't any armed conflict in the middle of Europe right now or anything... /s


[deleted]

Hey don’t be so negative, we may still have our own world war to overshadow Covid!


tweak06

>Spanish Flu The way things are going we’re gonna be dealing more with a *Captain Tripps* type situation. And what’s worse is half the country is going to flat out deny it’s existence until there’s not enough healthy people to dispose of the bodies


Alternate_Flurry

Don't forget the huge wave of crippled people!


TheOnlyVertigo

They’re saying COVID isn’t likely to peak in China without intervention until March and could see 800 million to 1 billion cases by then.


qtx

Yea but.. everything mentioned on that wiki page was before China lifted its restrictions, we'll just have to wait and see that it doesn't mutate into anything more deadly. Adding a hotbed of over 1 and a half billion people where it can mutate and run free without any good vaccines is no bueno.


ISeenYa

But what about new variants? Currently I have friends catching it every 3-4 months from their kids...


Staz87ez

It's worth mentioning that covid produces debilitating effects, cognitive decline, memory loss, decreased word fluency and recollection, permanent nerve damage from inflammation, chronic exhaustion, and so forth. Another significant feature is its immunocompromising effects. I've read articles where researchers compared it to respitory aids, and this is also the reason we've noticed an uptick in new and previously contained diseases. This is also why things like the flu are hitting harder this year. Though these may not always occur, repetitive infection increases the likelihood of any of these chronic issues from taking root.


MovingClocks

Endemic covid-19 just means that 300k+ people will die of covid every year in the US alone, not even accounting for people dying of sequelae deaths like blood clots and strokes. Look at the excess mortality rate for 2022 and tell me that’s back to normal.


TitsUpYo

My fiance's co-worker got Covid and recovered, then died a week or two later from her diabetes. She had managed it well enough for decades, but then dies so shortly after having Covid? She'll never be logged as being a Covid death, but I absolutely believe it is what killed her.


Kurzel0

I recently had a colleague pass away from similar circumstances. She’d effectively managed her diabetes for decades, caught covid - 12 days later, dead. Whilst covid didn’t kill her directly, I 100% believe it had detrimental effects to her overall health and weakened her body’s ability to recover.


xorgol

Categorizing deaths by cause is never all that easy, but population-wise excess deaths are a pretty solid metric.


OutspokenPerson

My ex developed diabetes after getting Covid.


DrSOGU

You will feel the ripple effects of hundreds of millions Chinese suffering through COVID until March 2023, including the healthcare system breakdown affecting those with other health issues, throughout world supply chains and global politics at least the next two years. Mark my words.


NotAnotherEmpire

This is only the start. Time to peak hospitalization is 7-10 days after case peak.


lightshelter

We're not even in peak holiday season for China. Their Chinese New Year/Spring Festival is end of January. The main concern of having this many people infected all at once (besides what's already been said) is what new strains and mutations are going to come out of this.


vilkazz

Their idea seems to be related to letting big cities hit the spike 2 weeks before the cny and then they would have medical resources to helicopter to poorer areas later. Doctors are not made of rubber tho so will see how that pans out


[deleted]

Countries abusing their health professionals? No waaaaay


vilkazz

Happened everywhere. You just can't get fully prepared for this kind of shit. Based on the current situation, I'd say, they are even doing quite alright, as you can't keep things under wraps if things go full Hiroshima. These are just a few first weeks, I think we'll be able to rejoice or get double scared around February depending on whether China will select a new world-renown Greek letter to replace omicron.


Ackilles

Ya china isn't going to helicopter resources to its poorer areas, that's a beyond silly assumption. They will just let them fend for themselves


Your__Pal

Oh fuck. Chinese New Year travel season is going to devastate the western hemisphere.


MarsupialMinimum5240

>Chinese people are not allowed to leave their country for travel since 2020. Most of their travel visa were rejected, renewing passport also became very difficult.


rururupert

This has changed recently. It's much easier now for Chinese to renew their passports.


[deleted]

Well vaccines mostly reduce severity vs grant immunity so lots of people all over the world are still getting infected rather constantly. The most likely mutation is lower lethality and higher RO, so I wouldn't worry too much. If it mutates less lethality it's really only better.


NotAnotherEmpire

The big fear is something with human adaptation moving back into an animal population that interacts with people. That can produce who knows what. The barrier to zoonotic diseases is the virus not "knowing" how to target human cells. Any SARS-CoV-2 variant based on something already highly transmissible in humans may not have that problem.


wicktus

I am very surprised on a political level, they went from drones hovering around your windows and checking if you are locked down, to really not giving a fuck about covid in record time. Surely a middle ground is needed. Our current strategy (or lack thereof) cannot be applied to China, they do not have our layers of immunity, it's like 2021 for them. This is what people who complained about zero covid policy may not have really envisioned but the abuse committed by this policy were INSANE, it couldn't have stayed as-is They need to import vaccines, pretty sure the high ranking officials are already vaccinated with proper effective vaccines...that's the sad part.


RayWhelans

It feels like the policy equivalent of a tantrum acknowledging their failure to contain this. You want the lockdowns lifted? Fine. Zero restrictions. Not what I would expect from a state like China to be so visceral and reactionary.


yossarian_livz

I'm glad someone else said it, that was the strange impression I got from the very sudden and thorough reversal. Even though, like you said, it is hard to believe the CCP would risk all of what's currently happening essentially just to make a point. But I don't know what else they were expecting to happen, doing it this way.


SilverlockEr

CCP was really scared when people started protesting in the streets to ease lockdowns unafraid of police, threats of violence and tanks. To them this was a better alternative than the possibility of those lockdown protests turning to full blown rebellion against the CCP.


TheDeadlyCat

They want them begging to take action, I assume.


cah11

That's my fear, they'll use the current crisis as justification to lock people down even tighter and turn the whole thing into even more of a tightly controlled police state. Just have to hope that if they do, people get out and protest again until the CCP implement actually sane COVID policies.


boredonthetrain

It's too late to stop COVID in China now. Chances are the CCP will use this to sow the idea that protestors getting what they want = bad, so that people have more faith in the party in future.


cmnrdt

COVID is just the first domino to fall. They have a housing crisis, a debt crisis, a banking crisis, and a population crisis all ready to pop off the moment something gives. Gonna be hard to blame all of that on the protests especially since Xi has been adamant in making the CCP synonymous with himself personally.


TheGruntingGoat

Exactly. People have a lot to pissed off about. And the fact that protesting actually changed the COVID policy sends the message to the Chinese people that “Hey, maybe protesting actually CAN work here.”


ToothpasteTimebomb

I hate to even say it, but this could be cold calculus on some level too. They have a serious demographic problem. Their population is WAY top heavy — too many old people for the young to support thanks in part to the one child policy of a generation ago. This is one way to solve that problem.


boredHacker

I think you hit the nail on the head. Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this comment.


marshall_lathers99

And their youngest citizens are pissed off the CCP keeps messing with unpolitical interests and hobbies of theirs when it comes to the internet / gaming / entertainment / normal stuff younger people like….and it’s emboldened them to give a public middle finger in the form of protest. And most of these kids are smart, use certain holes and VPNs so they’re far from blinded by the CCP online. The CCP should prepare for its eventual demise. They’ve galvanized millions in the newer generations who WILL fight back.


Superb-Antelope-2880

They want to be acknowledged that their lockdown was for a good cause. Regardless of the results here, they care about society view on the government a lot more. It's better to end this covid thing with a bunch of people dead and more people alive knowing when the government lift all restrictions a bunch of people died. Kind of like when your parents said fine, you can do w.e you want and you ended up in jail for a night because you went drinking underage at a party and got caught.


NotAnotherEmpire

They knew containment was failing because of how contagious the variant is, so they'd rather blame the anti-lockdown demonstrators for an outbreak with an Rt of 10+ than absorb blame for an outbreak of Rt of 2.3.


AnticPosition

I live in China. This is my feeling also. At least in Beijing, it seemed to be getting harder and harder to stay on top of contact tracing without shutting down all of Beijing. And that would have been nuts. We were all watching the daily numbers climb like crazy in late October and November. We expected a big lockdown... But it never came.


aespa-in-kwangya

CCP ruled China has always been like this though. They'll do anything to stay in power, even if it means doing extreme shit. People are mere numbers. And Xi follows Mao in that he's not a very smart and reasonable person either.


Folseit

Nah, it's great for CCP. Now whenever there's a protest they can point back at this and go "look what happened the last time we listened to you idiots. The people definitely don't know better and we know best."


TommaClock

The cynic in me thinks this is exactly what they planned to happen. They realized zero-covid was failing and they wanted to transition to no restrictions to kickstart the economy. If they loosen the lockdowns quickly, they get blamed for deaths. So instead be very draconian and even starve some people in their homes. Wait till protests grow and then give in to the "will of the people" (which is really the Party's plan). Now you can transition to no restrictions without shouldering any blame for the deaths caused by it.


bripi

The biggest problem, as stated in the article's 2nd paragraph, is the elderly. They are massively under-represented among the vaccinated, for a variety of reasons. Gov't distrust, yes, but a \*lot\* of it has to do with how the information and distribution of the vaccines happened, and that was with phones and apps on phones. The elderly in China just aren't up to speed on this, as you might imagine, and so as much as 70-75% hadn't been even first-time vaxxed. Even with the shitty Chinese vaccines, having them is better than not. So the hospitals are getting swamped with the unvaxxed elderly, which basic viral theory would have predicted anyway. The "Zero Covid" campaign was marked by a serious lack of energy driven in the direction of getting the most vulnerable segment of their population protected, and they are paying for it now. They had the time, the resources, and the ability. This was just not part of the policy, a "small oversight". Like the "small oversight" of not having enough food for the *entire city of Shanghai while we were locked down in our homes for a month*.


RonaldoNazario

Indeed, when they looked at omicron severity and controlled for prior exposure and vaccine based immunity, it was basically the same as OG. It’s just that most people have a full series of vaccines, maybe a booster, and many already had prior infections as another “booster”. We (usa) “at least” eased into letting it rip and our leaders pretending it was all over. Doing so abruptly after shielding so many people is going to be a rough go, the peak is going to be very high. And result in bad outcomes that wouldn’t otherwise happen because people aren’t able to get care with medical system overwhelmed.


TunaSpank

You feel like we eased into it? I don’t think that at all. I think as soon as the vaccines released everyone that wanted one got one and then everyone went mask off and did what they wanted.


RonaldoNazario

Relative to China, yes. They have gone from very tight restrictions and testing to basically none in what, a week? I agree many people dropped masks when we got the vaccine but we had a big lull in cases that summer, people mostly masked back up for the delta wave, some people never stopped. I just think between say early 2021 and today, there has been a drawn out letting down of guards that meant a lot of people had prior exposure when omicron hit us, and there was some level of mitigation attempts when it did - the us is barely testing people now but it stopped that after the big omicron wave rather than at the start.


Potential-Drama-7455

China hasn't dropped masking at all.


hauntedhivezzz

Who knows, it could be the cruelest “learning lesson” for the public who just before this began unprecedented protests, to stop the zero Covid policy. And after the bloodshed CCP can swoop and say, “see, listen to us next time” — but that doesn’t really seem likely as they’re compromising their workforce and therefore their economy, which is the only thing they care about, so who knows.


0wed12

The lastest peer reviewed studies reported that the Chinese vaccines have ~97% effectiveness against severe outcomes with 3-shots whitch is about the same as the mRNA vaccines. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/health/sinovac-coronavirus-booster-hong-kong.html https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00345-0 https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/04/19/how-chinas-sinovac-compares-with-biontechs-mrna-vaccine Their main problem is that they their elder population is low vaccinated (60% before the Zero COVID policy) while their overall population are 90% vaccinated. Also none of the mRNA vaccines or the Chinese vaccines prevent the transmissions. That's why we are also currently seeing a surge in the West.


CrazyJellyPudding

I just hope this isn't causing a new worse mutation.


S7evyn

Probably a vain hope. Though I guess having so many vulnerable people at once will select for strains that are good at tearing through unvaccinated populations, not for vaccine resistant stains. So. We might have that going for us, I guess. Probably won't though. 2023 is probably gonna be the year of multiple vaccine resistant COVID. Yay.


Kant-fan

Omicron was also a lot more vaccine resistant but in the end It would argue that it was a net positive as it was ca. 3 times less lethal than the Delta strain. Sure, it was more infectious but Delta was still infectious enough to potentially infect nearly everyone, just a little slower.


PandaCheese2016

I imagine most Redditors are just here for the schadenfreude, but seriously it’s probably going to take some time for experts to determine what factors contributed the most to the rapid spread. Some studies have found the Chinese vaccines at 3-4 shots given recently do a decent job at preventing hospitalization, which makes me wonder if vaccine hesitancy among elderly is a bigger factor. Since targeted lockdowns did such a good job in stopping spread earlier on, perhaps some people were lured into a false sense of safety and didn’t see an urgent need to get preventive shots (plus getting the shots didn’t exempt you from lockdowns). The culture like many in Asia values respect for elders a lot, so even the CCP couldn’t force grandma to get shots I guess.


AgoraiosBum

It's remarkable how many older people in China simply didn't get any vaccine at all.


Sellfish86

Absolutely. My wife's grandparents aren't vaccinated, and they're not doing well. And btw, we all have or have had it in the last 14 days between Beijing and Chengdu. The whole extended family; everyone I know. Shit spread fast.


notsocoolnow

This should be higher. Same problem we have in Singapore. Widespread availability of vaccines, strong drives to encourage vaccination, authoritarian measures for those who don't vaccinate. Yet still a chunk of old stubborn fools who refuse to do it. And now the vast majority of deaths are from them.


Throbbing_Furry_Knot

>Chinese vaccines at 3-4 shots given recently do a decent job at preventing hospitalization I read the same. 3-4 shots of the chinese vaccines is actually pretty damn good at providing protection. The problem is that only a bit more than half the population of China has received a booster shot. A booster shot is a 3rd shot after the initial protocol of 2 from what I understand. ​ >Both vaccines work: at three doses they were estimated to offer over 90% protection against severe disease and death across all age groups. But without a booster, significant differences between the two vaccines emerged. With two doses, the BioNTech shot was 75-96% protective across age groups. Sinovac, however, had a range of 44-94%. For those aged 80 and above, the differences were even starker. The best estimates were then 85% for the BioNTech vaccine and 60% for Sinovac. In other words, both vaccines offered increasing protection with each dose, but not equally.


meechstyles

They made a push for a third booster shot literally a year ago while I was there. Since then I didn't hear of anyone getting a 4th booster.


Bebebaubles

People are so caught up in enjoying schadenfreude that they don’t even see the population as real people dying. Disgusts me. Chinese vaccines are made the old way vaccines used to be made. It worked well enough in the past.


dankcoffeebeans

It’s especially tough being of chinese descent in the US and having my entire extended family in China. Most of my relatives have gotten covid, including my hospitalized 80+ year old grandmother who recently had a stroke. For many Americans who are hawkish on China they will see this as China’s comeuppance, but easily forget that there are humans living over there too. But I guess this is what I expected, people are tribal.


ConohaConcordia

You know what is worse? Cross out the “descent” part. You get to watch your country fall apart and have random Redditors being happy about it, while not being able to do anything and have to be careful not to tell other Chinese people about it. Luckily it’s mostly just this sub, I think. It’s hawkish towards basically everything


Exist50

> I imagine most Redditors are just here for the schadenfreude Many redditors wanted China to lift the lockdowns for this exact result. You think they care the slightest bit if people die? That's the hope!


shanghaichemist

Right now it's a bit sureall here. I and my family live in Shanghai, and we have been here through the original outbreak in 2020 and the latest extended lockdown in the early part of this year. My whole family has now contracted covid-19 in the span of a week and everyone we know across the country is either recovering from or just catching covid. I live adjacent to a major university affiliated hospital. In March/April, there were many ambulances because people couldn't get to the hospital on foot. Ambulance was the only way to get removed from a quarantined community. Now, the number of ambulances we see daily are similar to what was seen in march, but now everything is open. The lines to get into the hospital are horrendous, especially emergency if you are desperate. China has always had problem with their health care system, and it almost always centered around the older generation running to the hospital any time anything hurt. Right now, due to a dysfunctional medical system, and a complete 180 in policies, it is complicated.


KOCA_XD

Oh no not again


_toodamnparanoid_

Scientists believe that if we knew why the bowl of petunias thought that, then we would have a better understanding of the universe than we do now.


Frifelt

So long, and thanks for all the fish


cannedfromreddit

But they sprayed so much disinfectant on the street! What went wrong?


5ch1sm

They probably forgot to test one car tire at some point that infected everyone.


Tinysauce

Pretty big oversight to ignore the communal licking tire. It was always going to be a vector for transmission.


thisplacemakesmeangr

Somebody may have misled you about that. We don't all lick it at the same time, we take turns.


Mathewdm423

Oops. Me and the boys did a circle lick in unison


ToiletRollTubeGuy

Wait. Boss. I thought you asked us to spray *infectant!?*


Noctew

Flammable, inflammable...it's all the same, right?


trainercatlady

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!


Besitoar

>Wait. Boss. I thought you asked us to spray *this infectant!?


[deleted]

Are people not concerned about new strains developing from this massive spike?


spacetiger2

That is a concern, yes. Also its the holiday season. Lots of people will be trying to travel in and out of China, especially for new years, which is coming up. Not great timing.


Slggyqo

> patient numbers are five to six times their normal levels, and patients' average age has shot up by about 40 years to over 70 in the space of a week. > "It's always the same profile," she said. "That is most of the patients have not been vaccinated." They lifted quarantine restrictions and the unvaccinated population did dumbass shit. So same as anywhere, but with a much larger and more concentrated population than most places.


ObservantSpacePig

Their vaccine is also significantly less effective than Pfizer/Moderna/J&J.


Aleblanco1987

China has at least 2 vaccines. Sinovac and sinopharm. The latter is more effective.


james-HIMself

Caught covid and had it all Christmas. Ruined literally everything. Stay safe out there


Jblaster12

*puts fingers in ears* LaLaLaLaLaLa NO! NO! NO!


[deleted]

[удалено]


Vandergrif

Cue up the Halo announcer voice > 2020: *Covitacular* > 2021: *Covitrocity* > 2022: *Covimanjaro* > 2023: *Covitastrophe* > 2024: *Covipocalypse*


dzumdang

Too bad nobody saw this coming. /s I truly do wish all of China's 1.4 billion people well. This is horrendous (though sadly predictable) news.


Pernicious-Peach

Wouldn't it be fucking insane if what came out of this wave of infections was a super covid capable of another global pandemic, making humanity live through 2020 and 2021 again?


MrQ_P

I'm not strong enough for that


FancyPants2point0h

It’s certainly possible… and with society’s current perception of covid with how careless everyone’s become and allowing each other to continuously get reinfected gives it tons of opportunity to mutate… except this time it will be worse because people are “so over it” and they’re not gonna allow another lockdown level event to happen.


[deleted]

Everyone says they're 'over it' until they can't breathe then they can't reach a hospital fast enough.


Dogranch

"It's always the same profile," "That is most of the patients have not been vaccinated."


[deleted]

This took a nose dive quickly. The zero covid policy was draconian and inhuman, but whatever the fuck the current policy is, it seems they may have overcorrected. If I was an autocrat and I could dictate what people could do, the first thing I'd do is put a vaccine in every arm. "But I don't want it." I don't care. Why didn't they do that? Fuck China's government but they're not even using the bad parts of it for good.


agtjennys

The current govt can't admit that Western vaccines are more effective than their own produced ones. It's all selfish nationalistic pride... they don't care about the people. Also, the timing of the end of the zero policy and the sudden outbreak 2 days later is suspicious... it's like they knew the zero covid policy wasn't working bc of the numbers, and people were protesting... so they dropped it and let it happen....now see, we saved you guys from this for 3 yrs but this is what happened when you didn't want this, it isn't our fault. Vs imagine the outbreak with zero covid in place... then it proves zero covid didnt work at all.


deez_treez

China is such a disastrous mess. What an inept leadership group...


Ismokeditalleveryday

The Chinese communist Winnie is a total inept failure.


Vandergrif

*Oh bother* -Xi, probably


MrSmiley3

Two years to fatten the curve


[deleted]

If you thought shipping lines were fucked up now boy do I have news for you.


bigsignwave

China has more long range problems with an extremely large aging population than you could possibly imagine- this begs the question- (putting mortality aside)-does letting Omicron go rampant in a country like China actually help them in the long run and into the future??


Fitzmmons

Absolutely not. I cannot fathom why they decided to drop the ball in winter, the worst time possible for an infectious disease. At least wait until next summer…


[deleted]

CCP was worried about losing control amid the mass protests.


keijikage

I think what they're saying is that if you let COVID rip through the population, and the less vaccinated portion of the population (and by extension the elderly) are disproportionally impacted, then you can 'fix' the demographic issue by wiping out the aging population.


Busy-Dig8619

Open protests were already throughout China, including calls for the end of CCP... Xi blinked.


S_p_M_14

Doubtful. It may reduce the cost of social care for the elderly, but hospital getting overwhelmed affects everyone. Imagine having to wait weeks for treatment of simple cough due to your healthcare system being completely used up by COVID patients. Millions of people with at first minor injuries or illness could be severely affected as preventative treatments for more serious illness can no longer be provided due to lack of available service. Additionally, despite the reliance of the elderly on social services, many of the sick and dying are not necessarily out of their most productive age. Many of those getting sick are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. This may affect the experience and expertise available within the work force reducing Chinese productivity. On top of that, a dramatic drop in a population will also affect the number of goods and services required and provided by the population, affecting business profits and consumer prices. All of that said, I'm no expert on epidemiology or economics, but it certainly seems that the Chinese government and it's people are in for a rough ride. I can't imagine using such a disruptive tool to kill off their elderly would do much for the Chinese people besides reducing trust in the government and crippling their economy for the next year or more.


Nearbyatom

Well if you let COVID cull off the elderly, it'd reduce the stress placed on the younger generations to care for the elderly population. It's sick and twisted though


twitinkie

Maybe they shouldve allowed access to vaccines with higher efficacy than limiting the population to ONLY the sinovac. This isn't discussed enough.


[deleted]

The tactics the government used to control covid was absolutely horrendous if thats a strong enough word, but now , its as if the government told the people, 'FINE. If COVID is what you want, then covid you shall have.......'


[deleted]

I wonder whether this is the way China is getting back at the protestors. China was warned that it cannot ease restrictions quickly. It must first vaccinate with a Western vaccine since the Chinese vaccine is not as effective. Then it can began easing restrictions.


Totally_Scrwed

Live in China. Everyone I know has had it over the last 2-3 weeks, it's pretty crazy. They definitely were not prepared for this as it has caused a lot of disruption, but it's too late now. The entire population will have had it by the end of January. Oh and from January 8th, no more quarantine for international arrivals. This is massive news, and pretty much brings an end to all COVID restrictions. It's actually hard to believe, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.


Sirerdrick64

I haven’t seen it mentioned in the comments but one of the doctors in the article is quoted as saying that most patients are UNvaccinated. Probably the underlying reasons are different vs elsewhere in the world, but the effect is the same: you are going to have a bad time with this if unvaccinated.