With record covid cases, China scrambles to plug an immunity gap

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Washington Post

By Christian Shepherd and Vic Chiang November 25, 2022 at 2:30 a.m. EST

A coronavirus outbreak on the verge of being China’s biggest of the pandemic has exposed a critical flaw in Beijing’s “zero covid” strategy: a vast population without natural immunity. After months with only occasional hot spots in the country, most of its 1.4 billion people have never been exposed to the virus.

Chinese authorities, who on Thursday reported a record 31,656 infections, are scrambling to protect the most vulnerable populations. They have launched a more aggressive vaccine drive to boost immunity, expanded hospital capacity and started to restrict the movement of at-risk groups. The elderly, who have an especially low vaccination rate, are a key target.

These efforts, which stop short of approving foreign vaccines, are an attempt to keep the virus from overwhelming a health-care system ill-prepared for a flood of very sick covid patients.

More intensive-care beds and better vaccination coverage “should have started 2½ years ago, but the single-minded focus on containment meant fewer resources focused on this,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.



Pandemic control workers help erect a metal barrier fence Thursday outside a Beijing community under lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/25/china-covid-infection-vaccines-outbreak/

[tanyev]

1. If they are forcing people to stay home, why not force everyone to get vaccinated?

And once they realized their vaccine wasn't very effective, they should have started bringing in foreign vaccines. Some countries have dealt with this much more effectively than others, but it seems like every country eventually got tripped up one way or another.

[dalton99a]

2. Xi Jinping's idiocy is on display for the world to see.

[hay rick]

3. The high price of authoritarian arrogance.

The zero Covid policy was never achievable and an inflexible regime failed to learn from experience. It looks like the zero Covid dogma also handicapped China in vaccine development and uptake.

[NickB79]

4. Their domestically made vaccines suck in general

Compared to the Pfizer and Moderna shots we have.

So vaccination drives have even less effect, and more breakthrough cases.

[IronLionZion]

5. Interesting that their elderly are antivax, when it's young people in the US

China's vaccine is terrible but Pfizer and Moderna are excellent so why not just buy the foreign ones? The whole world buys Chinese stuff so they should buy something of ours for a change.

[nycbos]

6. They are very nationalistic.

Xi doesn't want to be seen getting help from the west.

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. Anything that makes the CCP look bad or week is censored

It isn't about effective. . .it's about keeping the narrative that China is better than everyone else.

Buying foreign vaccines means the CCP failed Can't have that.

[progree]

7. "Fear of Quarantine Camps, Not Covid, Is Shutting Beijing Down", Bloomberg, 11/25/22

Last edited Fri Nov 25, 2022, 08:39 PM - Edit history (1)

There are serious ramifications to being exposed to Covid-19 in China -- and not just infection. As the country confronts its biggest outbreak ever, residents in major cities are hunkering down because of the prospect of being sent to a quarantine camp or locked down at home.

Going out in the capital of Beijing means having to scan a QR code to enter venues like shops and restaurants, or to even take public transportation. Under the country’s ubiquitous contract-tracing surveillance system, visiting the same places as someone who later turns up infected can land you in a government isolation facility, where conditions can be so poor that some people say they are buying chamber pots and portable tents in preparation.

That’s why the capital has largely battened down. People are staying at home as transmission increases, even though the overall risk of infection remains low, with 1,854 cases reported for the city of 22 million people on Thursday.

“I’m not scared of getting infected at all,” said Liu, a 36 year-old who works in the media industry. “I’m in fear of getting locked down or even sent to a quarantine facility. There’s a higher chance I end up there if I scan those codes to get into public venues.”

More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/fear-of-quarantine-camps-not-covid-is-shutting-beijing-down/ar-AA14xMOk

Some Reported Daily New Cases Per 100,000 population, 7 day moving average:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

104 South Korea
69 Japan
58 France
49 Italy
...
31 New Mexico
26 Arizona
...
13 U.S.
...
 2 China

Granted all reported case statistics are an undercount

I know, I know. China is probably cheating. But whenever I post some U.S. state statistics, people tell me the red states are all cheating. And so it goes. Sigh.

[speak easy]

12. Those figures are average new daily cases, not cumulative numbers

the U.S. has reported 100 million cases out of a population of 330 million

[progree]

13. Thank you. I ALWAYS forget something important when I post these things

Usually I get it right after 5 edits. But not always.

I used to have a template so that helped get the words right. But hardly anyone posts Covid statistics anymore, so I've gotten out of practice.

I corrected the line above the table to:

Some Reported Daily New Cases Per 100,000 population, 7 day moving average.

I'll have to quick-fix it at the other place I posted it before someone notices

I see from Worldometers the cumulative --
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Total reported cases (cumulative) per 1 million population

300,043 U.S.

402,581 Italy

573,173 France

208 China

As always, reported cases are a vast undercount.

[IbogaProject]

8. They should use the Cuban ones

Both major Cuban COVID vaccines are very effective. And while the PR isn't as strong as their own, it could still be part of their political rhetoric.

[paleotn]

9. Trying to beat out Trump....

for the most mismanaged pandemic response in recorded history. China is not, nor can it be, an island, easily cutoff from the rest of the world. Unless the entire globe united in iron clad quarantining and squashed Covid, it was only a matter of time until it was everywhere. From Terra Del Fuego to Greenland. Since it's endemic everywhere now, what was China planning to do? On and off lock downs from now to forever? What idiots!

[Ford_Prefect]

10. Here we go again...

[Kennah]

14. I tell people forget about COVID-19

Because COVID-23 is on the way