China may arguably have done a better job at the collective response to the virus than the west at the start of the pandemic (though with measures that probably wouldn't been seen as acceptable in liberal countries). So there they might have had reason to brag that their authoritarian system works "better", for some definition of better.
But now their zero covid policy seem to be largely symbolic and to save face - you (probably?) can't lock down Omicron. Should have spent the time they won with their good initial response to increase immunity levels in the population.
Zero covid seems to be working in Jilin an Shenyang lockdowns - about 15m after a month. SH fucked up by thinking they could pull of dynamic zero. Too many financial interests and tier1 entitlement thinking not to tempt it. Not mandating vaxxing among elderly was a mistake. CCP not authoritarian when it should be.
Sadly that logic doesn’t work here, though it’s tempting. There’s a portion of the population that refused vaccines, due to a combination of factors including misinformation. Omicron going wild would put millions of elderly people into the hospitals, jamming up the healthcare system and leading to millions more excess deaths.
So what is the endgame here? Covid is not going away. Does that mean that China will become an isolated island with waves of lockdowns for the next decades?
If that’s what suits the party best, probably. Communist dictatorships aren’t known for very rational policies when they need to save face on something.
That’s the question a lot of people seem to have, but think about it: they’ve already bought themselves 2 extra years of vaccine + therapeutics development, and beefing up of medical infrastructure. There’s no way they can do lockdowns forever, and they’re open about that in all the media. But there’s a point in those other trends at which opening up becomes millions of times less dangerous, and we’re just not there yet.
Force elders to vax. Build up antiviral stockpile. Maybe wait for milder strain. Roll out phased living with covid experiments by region. Take a few extra years to spare millions of deaths.
It's wild to me that they're able to enforce heavy lockdowns like these but aren't able to persuade everyone (or a large enough % of "everyone") to take a vaccination.
I forgot which numbers I saw, but yeah their overall rate is high. The problem is that so many of the remaining unvaccinated are elderly, so if they start getting sick they’ll get it bad and overload the system.
Another problem is that the efficacy rate of Sinovac is far lower than that of the mRNA vaccines in preventing illness, although it still drastically reduces severe disease.
But now their zero covid policy seem to be largely symbolic and to save face - you (probably?) can't lock down Omicron. Should have spent the time they won with their good initial response to increase immunity levels in the population.