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Comment by henrikschroder | Hacker News Reader

I don't trust a single number or report coming out of China. The official numbers show a couple of thousand dead. No way.

Dictatorships usually make examples of individuals/groups/regions to make everyone else fall in line. The virus however doesn't give a shit about the wishes of authoritarian regimes, which is why making an example of a region or a city and forcing millions of people to stay indoors, doesn't stop the spread elsewhere. It's a virus, not a rebellion.

I'm assuming China has always had a low level spread that could be hidden, because their demographics make it a non-issue. However, I'm guessing Omicron is creating such massive spread that regional officials can't deny reality any longer, and the lockdowns are some kind of desperate last-ditch attempt to save face.

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There have been independent studies showing their numbers are, while not perfectly accurate, within the margin of error for extrapolated excess mortality[0].

As I've said in other threads on this issue, it is very difficult to hide deaths on even a small scale. Bodies do not simply disappear, and even small numbers of deaths are easily discoverable by measuring economic output (and even air quality!) of the region.

China is being at least reletively honest in their reporting, and I think thats difficult for us westerners to believe because their numbers are so shockingly low. An effective containment strategy _is_ possible, and the west has utterly failed in that respect.

[0]: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n415

I'm not suggesting China has been hiding bodies, but with a demographic where diabetes and obesity is almost non-existant, the mortality of covid-19 is very low. You shouldn't see any excess mortality, which means you can hide the true number of cases by lying about cause of death instead.

> An effective containment strategy _is_ possible

Not at any cost I'm comfortable with.

I'm sure the 800k dead Americans would disagree.

Your argument is incredibly dishonest and myopic, because you're suggesting that every single one of those deaths were avoidable, and that any containment strategy wouldn't cause any deaths or carry any costs either.

Suicides among kids and teenagers are up 20%, I'm sure those kids would disagree with you.

Deaths of despair, i.e. alcohol and drug-related deaths are up considerably. Do their deaths count?

Deaths among dementia patients and similar are up, because of the isolation. It's very important grandma doesn't die of covid, but apparently no-one cares if grandma dies of loneliness.

Cancer screenings, heart screenings, stroke care, all of that is on the backburner, which will cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the future.

School disruptions affect all kids, but lower-income kids are overwhelmingly affected by it, and them lagging behind translates directly into shorter lifespans for that group.

We understand that every policy needs a cost-benefit analysis, but somehow, for corona, we completely abandoned that line of thought and went on some hysterical bandwagon where absolutely no strategy is deemed to costly.

Every single comprehensive QALY analysis of lockdown policies show that their cost is horrendous compared to the benefits. We're happily, gleefully, sacrificing our young for the benefit of our elders, and yet if you point this out, you're somehow the callous, unfeeling, murderer. It's insane.

These are all points in favor of my position.

China has obviously succeeded in defeating COVID, and done so with none of these secondary deaths you're describing (look at excess mortality). All of these "secondary" deaths did not occur in countries that implemented effective containment strategies, why do you think that is?

The western strategy has resulted in these "secondary" deaths you're describing, as a result of people like yourself being unwilling to accept the effective containment is possible and worth the cost.

> China has obviously succeeded in defeating COVID

No.

Diabetes and obesity are not "almost non-existant" in China.

According to National Health Commission report, more than 50% of adults are classified as overweight, and 16.4% are obese. [1]

Prevalence of diabetes is also over 10 %. [2]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55428530

[2] https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m997#:~:text=The%20preva....

Have you read it? Or did you take the word of other people on HN who told you your link was a study about China and not Cuba?

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