There are enough people it’s dangerous for, especially in a population not widely exposed to it and who haven’t had mRNA boosters, that it can cause hospitals to jam up and pictures of grandma dying on a stretcher outside a regional hospital.
This is a political big deal when you’ve spent 2 years mouthing off about the decadent West’s poor handling of the pandemic.
I’ve been somewhat amazed at how China has handled it as of late. I get the short-term goal - stop Covid from taking hold by isolating new outbreaks. They have the manpower and the organization to isolate entire cities, do mass testing and lockdown neighborhoods.
But:
1. It’s pretty clear with Omnicron the higher infectivity is making that task harder and lockdowns longer
2. The lockdowns have real economic impact that you might be able to weather in the short-term AND while other countries are in the same bucket, but it’s not a long term solution.
3. What is their long-term goal? Maintain zero Covid forever? Impossible unless a highly effective vaccine that prevents transmission is invented.
I have family in another authoritarian country that took a similar approach to China. It bit them in the ass when the outbreaks were bigger than they could handle so then it became massive vaccination (by coming hat in hand to the companies/countries that they had earlier told “we have it under control”).
Now it’s pretty much endemic, but hospitals aren’t overwhelmed so the government is just forging ahead. I think mostly due to the massive economic hit the country took.
My guess is China will end up doing the same as the Western countries - once they realize Omicron isn’t that serious in vaccinated individuals, they’ll just stop restrictions and pretend that was the plan all along and pat themselves on the back on how much better and smarter China handled it.
They already do. And more than one public figures of ChinaCDC posted "we had to live with COVID eventually" online.
This is not what Xi is trying to do though, at least for now.
Afaik Sinovac is pretty much useless against Omicron.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccinat...
Edit: changed my ambiguous wording
> if is China is willing, it can go down the same path of vax-and-let-it-rip
Many many fewer Chinese have immunity from having had the virus than Brits
The point I am trying to make is that this is a political choice rather than a question of access to technology.
Exactly, quick, strict lockdowns at first puts off the infections to come later when you return a largely non-immune population to business as usual. Zero-COVID should not be the aim, but only to spread out the load on hospitals and emergency care facilities. You want your vulnerable population to get vaccinated, and the less vulnerable who become infected no matter what, build your immune base.
Absolutely not. And that is they key problem.
Personally I was quite sure that Beijing would allow Biontech sooner or later, especially since the Chinese company Fosun was a very smart early investor in BNT.
But unfortunately it seems Xi's nationalism is now so strong that he is willing to let many people die for it.
It should have said:
Some of the vaccines that China have is of the same type as the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In a managed economy like China, is this as big a deal? At least conceptually they should be better able to reallocate scarce medical resources than we are.
At risk people (the vast, vast minority) need to self quarantine instead of having the unrealistic expectation that the everyone should instead of them.
60s is a different thing, but at 70 there are very real questions about whether a quarantine is even worth it. Do you risk losing half your remaining lifespan in a quarantine, attempting to avoid a 30% chance of death? The calculus is grim, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored.
Also maybe this is China specific paranoia since neighbouring India doesn't care much and they seem to be doing fine wrt Omicron.