fart simpson posted:

what was ever the point of only requiring testing on unvaccinated people? the vaccines dont stop people from spreading it around really at all and we've known this since pretty early on

quote:

...

Phase 3: Adaptation and preparation (August 2021—October 2022)

In August 2021, in response to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, China adopted a new strategy called “Dynamic Zero-Covid.” It was designed to balance health, economic, and social needs and to minimize the impact of the epidemic on the economy, society, production, and the people’s everyday life.

There is no one-size-fits-all measure for a country of 1.4 billion people. During this third phase, guided by science, the country experimented with its prevention and implementation practices. Mass testing was developed to high levels of efficiency, in which Guangzhou’s 18 million inhabitants could be tested a mere three days, while the cost of pooling PCR tests (ten samples per test tube and taking advantage of low infection rates) were reduced to merely 3.5 yuan (US$0.50) per person. The country developed a nation-wide digital travel code and city-level “green code” cellphone applications to track Covid cases and those who have visited high-risk areas. All the while, the government moved towards more targeted measures to limit the use of large-scale lockdowns. During the Shanghai outbreak, for example, residential communities were classified into “lockdown,” “controlled,” or “precautionary” zones based on their risk level to try to minimize the interruption of daily and economic life.

Between January 2020 and mid-April 2022, China had spent an estimated US$45.1 billion to provide 11.5 billion free PCR testing for its residents. The costs of this mass testing strategy, however, were also mounting, with estimates reaching 1.8 percent of the country’s GDP and putting pressure especially on local government budgets. Despite the economic pressures, rather than “crippling” China’s economy, the country’s GDP grew nearly four times faster than the U.S. and five times compared to the EU, from the start of the pandemic to Q3 of 2022.

Despite being the second largest economy, China is still a developing country. The pandemic strained the country’s medical system, which was lacking in several key areas. Accordingly, China used the last three years to begin to fill in those gaps, primarily through increasing its intensive care unit (ICU) capacity. In 2019, China had only 3.6 ICU per 100,000 residents, which was nine times less than the U.S. with 34.7 units. Since 2019, China increased its supply of ICU beds 2.4-fold (57,160 in December 2019 to 138,800 in December 2022). In the same period, ICU doctors and nurses increased by one-third and doubled, respectively.

On January 15, 2022, China had its first case of locally transmitted Omicron infection. On April 18, 2022, Shanghai announced its first three Covid-related deaths, all unvaccinated elderly people aged over 89 years. At the time of the Shanghai outbreak, while 87 percent of the country were already fully vaccinated, that number dropped to only 62 percent for the city’s 3.6 million elderly aged over 60, with 38 percent having received booster shots. The country knew that this vulnerable sector of the population had to be protected.

Significant efforts have since been made to increase vaccination of the elderly. The official National Health Commission reported that on November 30, 2022, the breakdown of vaccination rates for people aged over 80 years are as follows: 76.6 percent at least one shot, 65.8 percent two shots or more, and 40 percent three or more doses. Despite the lower mortality rates of the Omicron variant, its highly contagious nature posed serious challenges to the country’s existing prevention and control measures, while putting great strains on the economy. Even two doses of so-called advanced Western mRNA vaccines like Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine or Moderna’s similar mRNA vaccine provide only about 30 percent protection against symptomatic infection from Omicron for about four months.

___

Phase 4: Downgrading severity and easing controls (November 2022 to present)

As Omicron began to spread, comparisons showed that the risk of death when infected with Omicron BA.2 was less than half that of Delta. One Chinese scientific study on mice showed that the new Covid-19 strains had 100 times lower virus load than the original, but was highly transmissible. China knew it needed to adjust its policies with the shifting nature of the virus, but with some important considerations.

On November 11, the central government released its “20 measures” to begin to relax its Zero-Covid policies. This included reducing mandatory quarantine time for inbound flights, decreasing isolation times, promoting vaccination of elderly, and eliminating the use of mass testing. For a country of its size, any central government policy takes time and huge organizational capacity to be implemented at the local scale.

...

quote:

...

The easing created initial confusion, and some people were upset with local community officials for not upholding the central government’s easing measures, frequently aired on Chinese social media platforms. Though there was frustration and exhaustion, it would be a mistake to believe that the downgrading phase was a response to the series of small, coordinated “white paper protests” that occurred after an Urumqi apartment fire that claimed the ten lives on November 24. Not only did the protests occur two weeks after the government began relaxing its Covid measures, but they were also not representative of the Chinese public opinion at large. The government easing also sparked another concern, with many people worried about getting infected. Several Weibo social media users expressed anger and criticism of the protesters, seeing them as irresponsible, middle-class youth who wanted their personal liberties at a collective expense. Unlike the blanketing Western media portrayals, Chinese people do not have a singular voice.

On Monday December 26, China announced it will downgrade the management of Covid-19 from Class A to Class B of infectious diseases on January 8, 2023. The three main reasons for this change include the fact that Omicron is not as virulent as Delta, a large percentage of the population had been vaccinated, and the country’s health system was better prepared. China uses a three-level system for the classification of infectious diseases, each delimiting specific response measures. Class A, the most dangerous, includes only cholera and the plague. Class B includes SARS, AIDS, and tuberculosis. Class C includes the flu and the mumps. Corresponding to this change, Covid-19 measures will be further relaxed.

Twelve main countermeasures were identified for the new Covid-19 policy corresponding to Class B control: 1) Increase vaccination rates; 2) prepare drugs and testing reagents for patients; 3) increase investment in construction of medical resources including ICU beds; 4) shift from mass PCR testing; 5) treat patients according to severity; 6) improve health survey and data, including vaccination status of those aged over 65 years; 7) control vulnerable population institutions, including elder care, hospitals, and schools; 8) strengthen prevention and control for rural areas and for high-risk patients; 9) increase epidemic monitoring, response, and control; 10) promote personal protection and the principle of everyone’s responsibility for their own health; 11) enable information access and education; and 12) optimize international personnel exchanges.

In a press conference of the State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, Dr. Yin Wenwu, Chief Physician of CDC’s Division of Infection Prevention, addressed the consequence of classifying Covid-19 as a Class B, which would reduce the frequency of the publication of data. The new data, which will be released monthly, will include the number of existing hospitalized cases and serious illnesses, including critical illnesses, and the cumulative number of deaths.

As expected, downgrading the severity of the virus’s management would also mean increasing the number of infections and related deaths. However, no single prediction model can be easily applied to China. Existing models for Covid-19 infection and mortality predictions have a wide range of outcomes. Forecast accuracy tends to decrease as prediction times increase, with models showing up to fivefold increase in error comparing one-week to 20-week horizons. Even the same Omicron variant has resulted in varied mortality rates in different countries. As of December 21, the U.S. seven-day rolling death rate was as high as 437 people, or a rate of 1.29 per million. Meanwhile, Japan had a comparable rate of 2.0 per million and New Zealand 0.85 per million.

quote:

Although China has now surpassed the life expectancy of the U.S., it has relatively fewer people 75 years and older than the U.S. (46 percent fewer as a percentage of the total population for each country). Omicron has had the impact that a massive 69 percent of all Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. in September 2022 were from this age group. The demographic difference in this age group, taken as a stand-alone factor, would imply an over 30 percent reduction in likely death rates for China.

Western media have been quick to use selective stories and photographs to create a broader image of the “chaotic” situation in China, including alleging very high death rates. China, with a population of over 1.4 billion people, had over 27,000 deaths per day prior to the Pandemic. Using existing Omicron death rates from other countries would infer a possible 6 percent increase in death rates. These would be significant deaths, into the many tens of thousands, but there is no evidence yet provided that supports the millions that the West is speculating.

This downgrading phase is indeed complex and challenging, as doctors are working overtime with increase in cases, some hospitals are in full capacity, fever medicines have faced shortages, and winter-related ailments are adding complications. However, relaxing measures now means that China has used the last three years to try to prepare itself the best that it can by vaccinating the people, studying the virus, building medical infrastructure, training workers, and waiting until a much less deadly strain had emerged. It has also gained hard-earned experience that is essential to managing any future pandemic.

___

Steps being taken now

Not for lack of vaccines, there are several reasons for the relatively slow vaccination rates for China’s elders. Many of them had preconceived notions about vaccines or were worried about complications related to underlying health conditions, while the successful control of the virus disincentivized elders to get vaccinated. Comparatively, in the United States, only 36 percent of people 65 and older have received the updated shot, known as the bivalent booster, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China, on the other hand, has consistently made efforts to convince, and not coerce, this vulnerable group to get vaccinated.

On November 29, the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, adjusted the booster vaccination protocol, and required localities to extensively survey senior populations and ramp up services and awareness campaigns. Between December 1 and 13, 823,000 [people] of those over 80 years old received a third vaccine. China has created the world’s first commercially released inhaled vaccine for Covid-19: CanSino Biologics’ Convidecia Air, a non-replicated viral vector vaccine. This booster is already gaining popularity with the elderly.

Regarding the supply of medicines, some cities had shortages of fever medicines in the first weeks of December as cases increased. Hoarding, price-gouging, and the spike in demand were among the factors that contributed the supply shortage. In response, local governments started to distribute Ibuprofen for free, and Beijing residents, for example, can now get Ibuprofen and Paracetamol within an hour. China also passed a regulation on online pharmaceutical suppliers, that included penalties up to five million RMB (US$720,000) for pharmacies that increase prices according to speculative behavior. China has also made Pfizer’s Paxlovid oral antiviral treatment available.

Due to mass testing during phase three of the anti-pandemic fight, the government was able to obtain accurate data about the virus to inform its responses. As mass testing has been phased out in this current phase, some data precision will inevitably be foregone. However, China’s resilience is demonstrated in its ability to respond to new situations, applying technologies and science to evolve its public health system. For example, in the past two weeks, over ten provincial CDC’s, including in Sichuan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, have launched surveys with hundreds of thousands of participating citizens. This survey data, though limited by sampling methodology, provides an important reference for local and central authorities to monitor the path of the disease, and collect information including on important hospitals, availability of fever drugs, and response capacity of local governments.

...

China’s CDC continues to actively conduct real-time dynamic monitoring on Covid-19. From December 1 to 29, it had completed the whole genetic sequencing of 1,142 cases through sampling survey. There are seven Omicron subvariants circulating, two of which, BA.5.2 and BF.7, account for more than 80 percent of all cases. BF.7 has greater immune escape ability, a shorter incubation period, and faster transmission. Guangzhou reported that 96 percent of people infected and tested had the BA5.2 variant, the symptoms of which are generally considered milder. There has been no reemergence of the Delta variant or other previous strains. However, the U.S. has conveniently used this moment to target visitors from China, requiring them to show negative Covid-19 tests to enter the country. Ironically, it was the U.S. that failed to prioritize Covid-19 variant surveillance in 2020.

Several prediction models have been published in the last week, including one by former CDC chief scientist of epidemiology Zeng Guang, states that the infection rate in Beijing may have exceeded 80 percent. These models also predict that the second wave is likely to be much milder and point to three factors behind the higher hospitalizations in the city: Beijing’s winter exacerbates respiratory symptoms among the elderly, Beijing is now listed as a moderately aging society (with 20 percent of the residents are above 60 years old, and the dominant BF.7 subvariant appears more virulent.

The government is paying close attention81 to the availability of medical resources, especially in the rural areas, in anticipation of the week-long spring festival starting January 21. China has increased daily production of antigen tests to 110 million units, along with 250,00 oximeters per day, and is prioritizing supply to rural areas. Rapid antigen tests cost as low as US$0.51 each on the e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo. In the rural areas where the medical infrastructure is less developed, the severity of the virus is not as bad as originally feared, according to online accounts. Barefoot doctors, a legacy of the Mao-era and sometimes pilloried by those seeking to privatize rural health, have been essential in providing care in rural eras despite having less resources than major city hospitals.

A look back at the last three years shows how difficult the pandemic has been for China and the world, testing the Chinese government’s capacity to confront such an unforeseen public health crisis as well as the people’s patience. In Beijing where I live, however, people are back and bundled in the streets, at work, and on the subways, with traffic and travel recovering. People are anxiously awaiting the spring festival, the most important holiday of the year. As we enter into a new year and a new era of fighting Covid-19—while anticipating the new viruses that will inevitably emerge—the hope is that the world can learn from these hard-earned lessons, act and cooperate using science, not rumors, and embody a spirit of international solidarity, not stigma.

sonatinas posted:

My experience in this is anecdotal and I'll try to exercise not too much conjecture. When my Myanmar customer started asked about all this documentation I realized that their Indian supplier had all of the container loading and testing done at a 3rd party warehouse where then this 3rd party can verify everything such as container being loaded accordingly, fumigation of container, quality tests done on the product to make sure it is up to spec, etc. In turn the buyer would have a bunch of certificates indicating that what they bought is what it is. I usually see this when buyers don't trust ordering from certain suppliers or whole countries since some of this stuff is directed at the buyer's countries import regulation authority.

We have all of this stuff in house and per USA federal regulations, there just isn't the infrastructure or industry in the middle of nowhere midwest USA for independent container loading and testing all under the same roof. You can ship it to transloaders but that's $$$. So I informed them all of this would be cost prohibitive and we follow X Y Z per us federal regs. The buyer talked to their customs and it got waived.

Now, some 3rd party certification services have completely taken over some government's customs duties so no matter what you have to pay these companies to get your goods "inspected" before shipping to them. They advise govts min quality specs for goods to be imported. I think it's a racket. For example, Uganda:https://www.sgs.com/en/services/uganda-product-conformity-assessment-pca. SGS and Intertek are the big ones that get contracts with govt customs.

I can't remember the names of all the documentation but I hope that paints a better picture.

gradenko_2000 posted:

quote:

Even two doses of so-called advanced Western mRNA vaccines like Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine or Moderna’s similar mRNA vaccine provide only about 30 percent protection against symptomatic infection from Omicron for about four months.

gradenko_2000 posted:

MR Online: A look back on three years of China’s anti-Covid-19 fight

I will pause the quote here to take note that the apartment fire in Xinjiang that was allegedly the proximate moment that sparked a number of anti-COVID-lockdown protests was on November 25, 2022, some two weeks after the 20 measures announcement cited by the author of this piece.

the citation for the November 11 announcement links to this article from the Global Times

Another pause here to point out that Japan is experiencing a rather severe surge that may have made these assumptions outdated by now.

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

Only tangentially related to your post, but this now widespread idea that 'we have better mRNA vaccines, and dumb Chinese people refusing to accept them out of stubbornness will cause more of them to die than us' is yet another thing that makes no sense compared to what Western governments have been saying about their own policy.

At least here non-mRNA Astra and Novavax vaccines were widely used and the government took great pains to communicate that you should not worry about which ones you got and you would be considered fully vaccinated regardless of whether you had an mRNA vaccine or not. Not surprisingly nobody ever comments on this now we have prioritised making GBS threads on Chinese covid policy over evaluating our own.

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

Only tangentially related to your post, but this now widespread idea that 'we have better mRNA vaccines, and dumb Chinese people refusing to accept them out of stubbornness will cause more of them to die than us' is yet another thing that makes no sense compared to what Western governments have been saying about their own policy.

At least here non-mRNA Astra and Novavax vaccines were widely used and the government took great pains to communicate that you should not worry about which ones you got and you would be considered fully vaccinated regardless of whether you had an mRNA vaccine or not. Not surprisingly nobody ever comments on this now we have prioritised making GBS threads on Chinese covid policy over evaluating our own.

gradenko_2000 posted:

hell, the UK even had a policy in 2021 by which a Pfizer shot administered to you in India didn't count for their vaccine pass rules, even if it's chemically the same loving shot, just because it was going to let people from India into the country

it's pure racism

stephenthinkpad posted:

I remember seeing a study showed India licensed and produced AZ vaccine had lower efficacy than the UK produced ones. I don't know if that was due to lower QC of the Indian vaccines or due to fake vaccine records. In any case the policy of not counting Indian AZ vaccine could still be motivated by racism depends on when the study came out.

Also the owner of major Indian vaccine company fled to UK in May 21, alot of shady business happened over there. Sounds like the backdrop of a blackmail heist movie.

exmarx posted:

it was definitely partly racism, but the justification for this wasn't vaccine quality – it was about the reliability of official vaccination records.

stephenthinkpad posted:

Elizabeth Economy

stephenthinkpad posted:

Elizabeth Economy

fart simpson posted:

Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She directs a transatlantic dialogue as the Richard C Holbrooke fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Dr. Economy is an acclaimed author and expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy.

quote:

U.S. Department of the Treasury (June 2021-)
Senior Spokesperson, Recovery Programs

Facebook Inc. (April 2019-June 2021)
Communications Director, Strategic Response

Facebook Inc. (June 2016-April 2019)
Executive Communications Manager

Instagram LLC (Oct. 2013-June 2016)
Communications Manager

Democratic National Committee (Dec. 2012-Sept. 2013)
Assistant Press Secretary

Democratic National Committee (April 2012-Dec. 2012)
Deborah Wasserman Schultz (Debbie)
Special Assistant to the Chair

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) (July 2011-April 2012)
Legislative Correspondent

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (Jan. 2011-July 2011)
Legislative Correspondent

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (Sept. 2009-Dec. 2010)
Staff Assistant

fart simpson posted:

Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She directs a transatlantic dialogue as the Richard C Holbrooke fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Dr. Economy is an acclaimed author and expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy.

mawarannahr posted:

rofl wonder if she knows Liz Bourgeois, U.S. Department of the Treasury (June 2021-), Senior Spokesperson, Recovery Programs

Orange Devil posted:

Yah, they're married.

quote:

Despite the economic pressures, rather than “crippling” China’s economy, the country’s GDP grew nearly four times faster than the U.S. and five times compared to the EU, from the start of the pandemic to Q3 of 2022.

Hedenius posted:

https://twitter.com/pdchina/status/1610182529046446080?s=46&t=VwY5u8oS4NCNwtcwMWtc4A

mila kunis posted:

can she speak chinese?

mila kunis posted:

can she speak chinese?

indigi posted:

this doesn't get talked about enough and it's why I’m hesitant to buy economic factors as the primary reason behind abandoning covid/dynamic zero

👀

fart simpson posted:

Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She directs a transatlantic dialogue as the Richard C Holbrooke fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Dr. Economy is an acclaimed author and expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy.

mawarannahr posted:

rofl wonder if she knows Liz Bourgeois, U.S. Department of the Treasury (June 2021-), Senior Spokesperson, Recovery Programs

fart simpson posted:

idk, i dont see any evidence for it. none of her bios mention anything that suggests it and her twitter is just full of crap like
https://twitter.com/LizEconomy/status/1445346443951235073

Cup Runneth Over posted:

Ok the sim needs a bit of tuning I think. Bit goofy.

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