Remember that 82% of Chinese support Dynamic Covid Zero because, after 3 years with the virus,
1. US GDP grew 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths and 3,000,000 Long Covids.
2. China's GDP grew 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths and 38,000 Long Covids.
3. Chinese life expectancy rose to 77.1 years, US fell to 76.1 years.
4. 72% of Chinese participate in the labor force, vs. 62% of Americans.
5. America has 100 new Covid cases every day per million people, China has 20 .
6. 0.0003 deaths/million Chinese, 0.8/million Americans, though Chinese testing catches every case.
7. 95% of China deaths are unvaccinated. In other words, the inactivated vaccines used in China seem to be doing what they are designed to do - prevent serious illness and death.
8. Free: 69% of Americans are fully vaccinated vs. 91% of Chinese
8. Free testing, vaccination, treatment and hospitalization: 69% of Americans fully vaccinated vs. 91% of Chinese (FT)
9. Fewer than 10% of Chinese have ever been quarantined.
11. "Long Covid is a $3.7 trillion drag on the U.S. economy equal to 17% of pre-pandemic economic output”. Harvard economist David Cutler says cost rivals the Great Recession**.
No question that China's pandemic policies have been far more successful than that of the US and the West in general. Just one observation: here in the West, when the Omicron variant appeared at the beginning of the year, it soon became obvious that it was more infectious (transmissible) than previous variants, but was also less virulent; it didn't penetrate the lungs so deeply, hence was less severe. I know quite a few people who had it, including family members, and none found it worse than the average seasonal flu. Our health authorities (some grudgingly) accepted that the pandemic had become endemic and that strict lock-down policies had to be abandoned. Omicron served, as it were, as our exit ramp from the pandemic. When China imposed the various regional lock-downs in the spring and more recently, I was perplexed that the same rationale was not applied there. Presumably the Chinese health authorities had their reasons and as an observer from afar I would never pass judgement on their decisions, it is simply interesting to compare our respective trajectories. Although you didn't mention it above, I've heard that China has also had good results with TCM treatments for Covid. How effective TCM is perhaps debatable, but TCM is surely safer than the experimental mRNA injections, as are the China's conventionally-producec Covid vaccines. Thanks for commenting!
A few other good substack to follow are: Austrian China, Ginger river review, Beijing Channel, Beijing Baselines, Cyrus Newsletter, Shattering hegemony, and India and geopolitics. Well written anyway, thanks so much Colin.
Remember that 82% of Chinese support Dynamic Covid Zero because, after 3 years with the virus,
1. US GDP grew 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths and 3,000,000 Long Covids.
2. China's GDP grew 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths and 38,000 Long Covids.
3. Chinese life expectancy rose to 77.1 years, US fell to 76.1 years.
4. 72% of Chinese participate in the labor force, vs. 62% of Americans.
5. America has 100 new Covid cases every day per million people, China has 20 .
6. 0.0003 deaths/million Chinese, 0.8/million Americans, though Chinese testing catches every case.
7. 95% of China deaths are unvaccinated. In other words, the inactivated vaccines used in China seem to be doing what they are designed to do - prevent serious illness and death.
8. Free: 69% of Americans are fully vaccinated vs. 91% of Chinese
8. Free testing, vaccination, treatment and hospitalization: 69% of Americans fully vaccinated vs. 91% of Chinese (FT)
9. Fewer than 10% of Chinese have ever been quarantined.
11. "Long Covid is a $3.7 trillion drag on the U.S. economy equal to 17% of pre-pandemic economic output”. Harvard economist David Cutler says cost rivals the Great Recession**.
*https://chinadatalab.ucsd.edu/viz-blog/how-unpopular-is-covid-zero/
**https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/why-long-covid-could-be-the-next-public-health-disaster.html
No question that China's pandemic policies have been far more successful than that of the US and the West in general. Just one observation: here in the West, when the Omicron variant appeared at the beginning of the year, it soon became obvious that it was more infectious (transmissible) than previous variants, but was also less virulent; it didn't penetrate the lungs so deeply, hence was less severe. I know quite a few people who had it, including family members, and none found it worse than the average seasonal flu. Our health authorities (some grudgingly) accepted that the pandemic had become endemic and that strict lock-down policies had to be abandoned. Omicron served, as it were, as our exit ramp from the pandemic. When China imposed the various regional lock-downs in the spring and more recently, I was perplexed that the same rationale was not applied there. Presumably the Chinese health authorities had their reasons and as an observer from afar I would never pass judgement on their decisions, it is simply interesting to compare our respective trajectories. Although you didn't mention it above, I've heard that China has also had good results with TCM treatments for Covid. How effective TCM is perhaps debatable, but TCM is surely safer than the experimental mRNA injections, as are the China's conventionally-producec Covid vaccines. Thanks for commenting!
A few other good substack to follow are: Austrian China, Ginger river review, Beijing Channel, Beijing Baselines, Cyrus Newsletter, Shattering hegemony, and India and geopolitics. Well written anyway, thanks so much Colin.
Thanks for the kind words -- and for the recommendations! Definitely will check them out.