Internation Events X - Why such a long break...?

[Spockydog]

State of this moron.

Could be worse though. 1100 years ago, prats like him were eating their horses and selling all their armour for a few heels of bread.

 

 

[kiko]

18 hours ago, Zorral said:

No beer! Cannot be a legitimate World Cup! Also the beer sponsor who paid what ? 40 million to sell, and whose contract got shafted by Qatar, sells Budweiser, which is hardly beer anyway -- unless the European Bud is different? Scandal upon scandal. 

If you mean the original from the city of Ceske Budejovice, it is really good, if you like Czech beer.

Never really see that other kind around here and who would buy it anyway?

[Darzin]

The latest  round of covid restrictions in Chin ahve been met with a lot of grumbling at least where I'm at seems like a lot of people have reached the point where they don't think it's worth it anymore. 

[The Anti-Targ]

I think the Chinese govt must still be following a rational thought process with maintaining a COVID zero policy. They have to think opening up to the same extent as pretty much every other country is going to lead to a bigger disaster than keeping up this policy. The question is whether the assumptions and models they are using to conclude that opening up would be a disaster worse than COVID zero are sound.

[Impmk2]

I think most public health experts expect the end of covid zero in China to be a complete shit show. Hong Kong on a massive scale. Their over 60s vaccination rate isn't even close to where in needs to be.

At this stage it looks inevitable. The numbers are increasing pretty dramatically, and if the population isn't buying in anymore...

[JGP]

Widespread protests around China right now, chanting down with the CCP, and Xi must resign. 

[JGP]

Like, is no one watching this at all. It's pretty amazing honestly.  

[Darzin]

There were protests at a uni my friend works at, protests in Shanghai, there is desent all over social media even with the government working overtime to delete it. Videos are staying up because there are too many to clear. There were significant demonstrations in Urumqi after people died in a fire do to Covid restrictions. A big police response but it appears the city was forced to open by protests after they had been in a 100 days of lockdown. Lots of apolitical people becoming politcal as they are done with it. Even some fantatically pro-government people that I know IRL and some online influencers types agree zero Covid has to end.

It feels very sudden two months ago I wrote how people were mostly going along with the policies, but with this new wave of lockdowns people just seem done. 

[The Anti-Targ]

The Chinese govt has to realise that COVID is endemic in the world, at least until someone comes up with a way to eradicate it without extreme public health measures like lockdowns. Zero COVID has never been a viable long-term approach for a country to be socially and economically functional. The cost-benefit of lockdowns turned negative as soon as everyone who wanted to be vaccinated got double vaxed. 

[polishgenius]

24 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The cost-benefit of lockdowns turned negative as soon as everyone who wanted to be vaccinated got double vaxed. 

That's part of the problem: China hasn't developed an mRNA vaccine yet and refuses to use a western one. 

[JGP]

And like most wealthy nations, has likely underfunded medical infrastructure and personnel to handle large outbreaks with such a large population. But I don’t know. 

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

That's part of the problem: China hasn't developed an mRNA vaccine yet and refuses to use a western one. 

Yeah, but they still have a vaccine which affords decent protection. Vaccines don't have to be mRNA to give people reasonable protection.

Health system capacity to cope with substantial waves might well be worse than many wealthier countries. Who knows, perhaps the protests and calls for heads to roll would be even greater if China allowed the waves of COVID to roll through without any public health measures other than masks and stay at home orders if you test positive if that would wind up with a few million people needing medical care but not getting it.

According to the CIA China has an adequate number of physicians per capita. Apparently the WHO reckons 2.3 healthcare professionals per 1000 population is the minimum for a just adequate healthcare system. The CIA reckons China has 2.23 medical doctors per 1000. It would certainly clear that 2.3 minimum when adding nurses and midwives. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/physicians-density/

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 11/26/2022 at 5:16 PM, JGP said:

Widespread protests around China right now, chanting down with the CCP, and Xi must resign. 

I lived through the Tiananinmen square protests in 1989.  At the time, as an 18 year old idealist, I thought it was the start of a new Chinese revolution.  How wrong I was. Is this like that or something else truly unprecedented in recent Chinese history?

[Gorn]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Health system capacity to cope with substantial waves might well be worse than many wealthier countries. Who knows, perhaps the protests and calls for heads to roll would be even greater if China allowed the waves of COVID to roll through without any public health measures other than masks and stay at home orders if you test positive if that would wind up with a few million people needing medical care but not getting it.

Name one country where this has happened, out of way too many whose health systems collapsed during the pandemic.

Human brains don't work that way. Deaths indirectly caused by inaction don't produce the same kind of fury as deaths directly attributable to a specific action.

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Yeah, but they still have a vaccine which affords decent protection. Vaccines don't have to be mRNA to give people reasonable protection.

My understanding is that their vaccine was not particularly effective at all against the base C19, and is very unlikely to provide almost any protection against the various Omicron variants. They have a high vaccination rate but that may not matter at all in this case, and given how high the breakout rate has been that seems to be proven so far on the ground. 

[JGP]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I lived through the Tiananinmen square protests in 1989.  At the time, as an 18 year old idealist, I thought it was the start of a new Chinese revolution.  How wrong I was. Is this like that or something else truly unprecedented in recent Chinese history?

I don't have my finger on the Chinese pulse so I couldn't say. Just think its remarkable. What's going on Iran is too.  

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

My understanding is that their vaccine was not particularly effective at all against the base C19, and is very unlikely to provide almost any protection against the various Omicron variants. They have a high vaccination rate but that may not matter at all in this case, and given how high the breakout rate has been that seems to be proven so far on the ground. 

I've also read that the vaccination rate is poor among elderly people since they focused on vaccinating working age people. I think something similar happened in Hong Kong, contributing to its high death rate a few months ago.

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I've also read that the vaccination rate is poor among elderly people since they focused on vaccinating working age people. I think something similar happened in Hong Kong, contributing to its high death rate a few months ago.

What was the logic of doing that?

[Impmk2]

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

My understanding is that their vaccine was not particularly effective at all against the base C19, and is very unlikely to provide almost any protection against the various Omicron variants. They have a high vaccination rate but that may not matter at all in this case, and given how high the breakout rate has been that seems to be proven so far on the ground. 

Their vaccine (at least sinopharm) is ok. Has been used pretty extensively outside China and by all reports affords decent protection against severe disease. Not too far off AZ or J&J.

The major problem is uptake in the elderly. 

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Impmk2 said:

Their vaccine (at least sinopharm) is ok. Has been used pretty extensively outside China and by all reports affords decent protection against severe disease. Not too far off AZ or J&J.

The major problem is uptake in the elderly. 

This isn't super great, especially since Sinovac is the main one:

Quote

In mid-2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) approved the shots for emergency use, on the basis of limited clinical-trial data suggesting that CoronaVac was 51% and Sinopharm 79% effective at preventing symptomatic disease. This was on a par with the 63% efficacy reported for the University of Oxford–AstraZeneca’s viral-vector vaccine at the time of its WHO listing, but lower than the 90% and higher efficacies of the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna.

That all said, the more worrisome thing is that the protection offered reportedly waned quickly, and we already know that Omicron is resistant against...uh...resistance.