I'm in Taiwan and this doesn't track. Taiwan has succeeded because they have continually adjusted according to research. They were always ahead of the game, having been the ones to alert the WHO of the existence of Covid (see the timeline [1]).
There are a lot of politics here, like anywhere. Opponents to the current administration are looking for an edge to break through what's been a phenomenal response from the government. The challengers' chance will come eventually, but I'm not sure it will come as a result of the government's handling of this pandemic. In my opinion, the challengers' attempts to win small battles over which-day-quarantine-should-be-discarded is likely to make them appear more frantic than organized. Rather than organizing, they've been wasting breath over minor quibbles week after week for the entirety of the last two years. It's really kind of unfortunate because instead of competing with better ideas, they keep trying to undermine, yet in doing so they have mostly undermined themselves.
https://taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2022/04/26/20037...
Judging from the experience of Hong Kong, without a lockdown, Shanghai would have quickly reached hundreds of thousands of new cases a day, and half of the city would have been infected within weeks. The death toll would have been several tens of thousands. Instead, the death toll is a few hundred.
Ironically, Shanghai is in the situation it's in right now because the city's leadership refused to go into lockdown early on, and just looked on as cases climbed into the thousands before doing anything. Other cities that took action early (like Shenzhen and Gaunghzhou) were able to get back down to zero cases very quickly, without anywhere near as much societal disruption.
But it seems unless you bring the China-style lockdown to every other part of the world outside China, it will just keep happening over and over again.
As Shanghai's case numbers steadily rose and the government did nothing, I was telling friends that the result would be a disaster.
What really worried me was when Shanghai announced that they were so economically important that they couldn't lock down. That convinced me that they had given up on zero-CoVID and were adopting the Western "living with the virus" approach, without fully admitting it to the public.
It's hard to see China reaching its goal of becoming a world leader if its people must remain cloistered indefinitely.
Because most of the rest of the world has decided to allow the virus to spread, China will eventually have to allow it to spread. However, China has bought two years of time to develop and deploy vaccines and antivirals. That's been immensely valuable, both in lives saved (about 4 million Chinese people would have died if China had followed the same strategy as the US) and in economic growth (China has outperformed most of the world economically during the pandemic).
In this Omicron phase, however, health outcomes from infection have been mild, and most susceptible individuals have had the opportunity to vaccinate. The extreme transmissibility of this evolution has resulted in its general circulation globally.
Therefore, "Zero Covid" is not a sustainable strategy moving forward - its health benefit has decreased, while its societal costs have increased as viral containment has gotten more difficult. There's also no winning condition in sight for this strategy - it'll need to remain in place in perpetuity to be effective.
Taiwan, the best country I've seen handle COVID globally, understood this shift and has gradually loosened restrictions as Omicron has found a foothold on the island. From my perspective, it's a result of medical and public health professionals making decisions, instead of politicians.
In the US, Omicron has killed about as many people as Delta did. It's slightly less lethal on a per-case basis, but much more infectious, so on a population level, it's just as deadly.
In Hong Kong alone, nearly ten thousand people died from Omicron when the government gave up the zero-CoVID policy.
> There's also no winning condition in sight for this strategy
Chinese public health officials have set out very clear and reasonable conditions for easing controls: a high level of vaccination, availability of antiviral drugs, overall mortality less than flu.
Context and time are relevant. Both Delta and an undervaccinated population were issues months ago. I would not say the virus is winning, nor would I call the response here a shit show. The CDC here has been saying since late last year that we will eventually need to live with Covid when it arrives.
A related response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31189893
No. I'm saddened that you believe this. There are plenty of people ineligible for the vaccine, and many of them are age 5 and under.
The virus is most certainly winning, at least in it's current form. The direction we're all headed right now is that vaccinated or not you'll get it and we must assume everyone will because we stopped measuring. A more lethal variant would be catastrophic right now, as if the past two years haven't been enough of a catastrophy.
If you read HN, then I assume you read the science, so there is no reason to peddle fear about kids and Covid.
This isn't peddling fear. Why have we normalized illnesses that we can otherwise prevent or avoid?
Parents of newborns must be vigilant, even against the flu. We cannot prevent Covid forever, just like we cannot erradicate the flu.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/infantcare.htm#:~:text=Chil....
I'm pretty convinced this is an unproductive conversation given that you state we cannot erradicate the flu when we absolutely could erradicate the flu just like covid. You don't seem to understand how selfish it is to care more about personal freedoms than the accompanying personal impact to the health of others, such as that of toddlers. It makes me sick.
> I'm pretty convinced this is an unproductive conversation given that you state we cannot erradicate the flu when we absolutely could erradicate the flu just like covid.
Okay. That's a pretty extreme view. I've never seen or heard anyone argue that. Viruses can be endemic. Like weather, they are out of our control. Humans can only manage so much. In some areas, nature exercises its power over us.
> You don't seem to understand how selfish it is to care more about personal freedoms than the accompanying personal impact to the health of others, such as that of toddlers. It makes me sick.
I have toddlers, and I do care about their personal health. I'm not about to advocate we all take the full lockdown being done in areas of China right now [1]. Fire is more likely to kill than covid when you lock people in their homes. And, I can't imagine not letting a toddler go outdoors for weeks on end. Domestic issues will flare up.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/udtnvu/extreme...
Are you an actual resident in Asia or a Westerner armchair philosophizing what people in Asia actually want.
Here’s a glimpse from actual Asian people, from a democratic country. These people here are being polite and aren’t saying outright, but a sentiment expressed here that’s pretty common is Asian people thinks it’s admirable that Americans have individual liberty, and acknowledge there are pros and cons to that. If you actually understood Asian culture and why these countries have these policies, then you’d know it’s not really a compliment. In Asia, maybe / kind-of means no. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ctmxV-yNhg
My partner is Taiwanese, and I am American. We moved Japan to during the pandemic because we don’t agree with the West and Americans’ attitude towards coronavirus. There is a lot of overlap between Taiwan and Japan, Taiwan being more “liberal” in some respects and Japan being conservative, but otherwise people from both countries on average prefer personal inconvenience for the collective good, especially given both of these cultures have a respect for the elderly.
We prefer what you call “draconian” measures. Let people who are residents in Asia deal with their governments. Who said people want liberty above all else? Freedom requires responsibility, and America hasn’t been for a while. Worry about the host of problems in America, because Asia is doing just fine.
People in the tourism industry are incentivized otherwise, but other people in Taiwan / Japan aren’t minding the inconveniences, so why are you? In fact, people are kind of enjoying the domestic venues without tourists, especially given the high propensity of Westerners who refuse to wear mask ( even when they are vaccinated ).
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/04/19/in-...
The lockdowns are great for the privileged class that "works" via Zoom meetings and can afford to move to another country if the current one does not sufficiently serve its interests.
The West conveniently omits Taiwan’s and Japan’s continued success with Covid for 2 years while the West sacrificed millions. I’m living my life and commuting as normal. Commute hours are packed full shoulder to shoulder. I feel way safer than in New York. New Zealand is another pacific Island that received outsized acclaim from the West. Guess what’s the difference between New Zealand and those Asian countries?
There’s also Vietnam, which for a country much lower on the economic progression has done exceedingly well.
Ofcourse Westerners and the West will say these Asian countries have skewed data because the don’t have tests. It was nearly impossible to find a covid test within a 2 week time frame in my hometown American city with a population over a million and an NBA team. Even then, I had to use a bot to hog a spot, then pay $200. In Japan, you can receive a test on the day throughout the pandemic and it cost less than $30. 95% of businesses in Japan do temperature checks and require hand sanitizers throughout 2021.
Australia and NZ are usually considered part of "the west". Culturally and ethnically, this is certainly true. You're frustrated people lump everyone in Asia together, as if its all one country. Please don't make the same mistake with "the west". We aren't one country either.
If you want to criticise the USA's handling of covid, do so. Us westerners aren't a homogeneous block either. I'm proud that Australia's covid response was much closer to that of Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam than it was to the USA and Canada.
Different places are different. We may all be addicted to the same smartphones, but globally the way different counties responded to covid differed wildly. Even painting the whole of the USA with the same brush feels a bit reductive.
This is just as true in the west as it is in the east.
Local businesses in most other places of the world were hit far harder.
Then ofcourse the famous pilot from China.
Taiwanese people have always been comfortable with face masks because of being on scooters and the dust.
> Who said people want liberty above all else? Freedom requires responsibility
I have many photos on my phone of people wearing facemasks but not helmets on their scooters
> Worry about the host of problems in America, because Asia is doing just fine
The old America/Asia dichotomy!
> Asia is doing just fine
How "Asia" is doing is exceptionally country-specific
Also since the omicron is milder and vaccines rather effective (as long as you don't refuse taking one), it's worth asking how much collective good is gained by personal inconvenience.
At least some people in South Korea seem to think that in the current situation the old restrictions are not worth it: https://www.ft.com/content/4be21b01-efd3-4f67-b353-7bad9eb33...
Not everyone in "the West" agrees with america's attitude to covid. All the things this article talks about are very similar to things we did here in Australia. (Though lets be honest - the system probably worked much better in Taipei.)
Here in Melbourne we endured 263 days in lockdown. We were allowed to leave our homes - but only for essential supplies, outdoor exercise, medical care or essential work. Unless you had a good reason, you couldn't travel more than 5km from home. We also had a nightly curfew, and all restaurants were closed (or take away only). And of course, we couldn't visit other people's homes. Wherever you went you needed to do QR code checkins so they could do contact tracing.
The city became a ghost town. After 9pm (or whenever the curfew was) the only people out were the occasional nurse or delivery driver heading home, and a swarm of ubereats / doordash drivers feeding everyone.
Everything has opened up again now that everyone who wants a vaccine has had one. And now we're just letting omicron do its thing.
For the most part, I support our government's response. I was watching the situation play out in the USA with horror. 1 million people dead, and nobody cares? What on earth? And there were apparently protests in NY about the "totalitarian" situation in Australia? Uh, what? We aren't the ones who need saving thankyouverymuch.
I had a friend visit from the USA for a funeral and she got put in hotel quarantine for 14 days in Sydney. She was so upset and angry over it all. I didn't know what to say - I'm glad she was in quarantine. Her right to go to the funeral didn't trump the rights of australians to stay safe from any disease she carried.
Covid made the world a big place again. Everywhere had different policies, and everyone had a different experience.