News Forum - China locks down 21 million people in Chengdu

[Thaiger]

The city of Chengdu in China, home to over 21 million people, will go into lockdown at 6pm today to control another Covid-19 outbreak. The country’s President Xi Jinping has committed to a ‘Covid Zero’ approach, despite the detrimental economic effects of lockdowns. Residents of the capital of Sichuan province must stay home at all times, except for mandatory Covid testing. Households are permitted to send one person out grocery shopping once a day so long as they have tested negative for the virus. Anyone who needs to exit their home due to an emergency e.g., to seek emergency medical […]

The story China locks down 21 million people in Chengdu as seen on Thaiger News.

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[Manu]

Hopefully the World has now learned from that kind of madness and will not get back to that ever!

[DoUKnowWhoIAm]

1 hour ago, Thaiger said:

Sneaking out of the house during lockdown will not fly in Chengdu or any Chinese city for that matter, where facial recognition surveillance technology pervades the streets.

They're serious about keeping control over their naughty citizens.

[EdwardV]

Millions of people in areas surrounding China's capital were ordered into lockdown on Tuesday (Aug 30), with the authorities doubling down on efforts to contain Covid-19 ahead of a key ruling Communist Party in October. Nearly four million people in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, were ordered to stay home until the end of the week as officials rush to curb a small virus flare-up. And more than 13 million in the neighbouring port city of Tianjin must undergo mass testing from 6am local time, after 51 mostly mild cases were reported.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-imposes-covid-19-lockdowns-for-millions-around-beijing

There are several areas and major cities under some form of lockdown. Basically China has no other choice. Their vaccines barely worked against the original virus and are completely worthless against the variations. Ironically they were and are so successful with lockdowns few people have built any immunity to the virus. The CCP has already stated the intent to keep the zero covid policy for another five years. About the time it will take them to fully develop, test and inoculated most of the population with a home grown MRNA vaccine. I have heard some speculation things like lighten up slightly after the major party conference in either October or November. I kinda think it’s more wishful thinking than anything else. Until they drop the policy, they will lurch back and forth from open to close all across the country. All while breaking China’s ties to the global economy piece by piece at the same time. Oh btw Apple has decided to build its IPHONE 14 in India. If you can’t reliably deliver products, people will go somewhere that can. 

[HiuMak]

15 hours ago, Thaiger said:

The city of Chengdu in China, home to over 21 million people, will go into lockdown at 6pm today to control another Covid-19 outbreak. The country’s President Xi Jinping has committed to a ‘Covid Zero’ approach, despite the detrimental economic effects of lockdowns.

Does China know something about their virus that the rest of the world don't?

[Fanta]

16 hours ago, Thaiger said:

The city of Chengdu in China, home to over 21 million people, will go into lockdown at 6pm today to control another Covid-19 outbreak.

21 million equals 0.15% of China’s population of approx 1,400 million. In Thailand that equals 99,000 people from 66 million.  

[rc1]

2 hours ago, Fanta said:

21 million equals 0.15% of China’s population of approx 1,400 million. In Thailand that equals 99,000 people from 66 million.  

Or the other way to say that is , China has locked down just under 1/3 of the entire population of Thailand? 

[Wackamole]

2 hours ago, Fanta said:

21 million equals 0.15% of China’s population of approx 1,400 million. In Thailand that equals 99,000 people from 66 million.  

you mean 1.5% and 1million in Thailand

[Bill_Koomers]

21 hours ago, EdwardV said:

 

 

 Their vaccines barely worked against the original virus and are completely worthless against the variations. 

So, the same as the rest of the world.

 

[lspab]

14 minutes ago, Bill_Koomers said:

So, the same as the rest of the world.

No, not the case at all.

 

China was the first to get out a vaccine, Sinovax. They followed a fairly conventional approach or using inactivated whole virus. However, they did this without a decent human cell expression system, opting for a chimp cell expression system. Essentially, SArs-Cov-2 was infected into a chimp cell line.  Virons are replicated. When Viruses replicate, they "pinch" a bit of RNA sequence from the host cell. The replicated virus was not 100% identical to the original, and the bits that were changed were not the same bits that are subject to normal selection pressure when the virus is in circulation in a human population.

 

Sinovac elicited a mixed response that wasn't as effective as other vaccines due to epitope mix.

 

The other vaccines have worked. That is plain to see through reduced ICU admissions, and reduced admissions due to COVID-19 (the latter is more difficult to quantify, because hospital admission stats also include those who have tested positive, but who were not actually admitted because of COVID).

 

These first S-Protein vaccines had a simple primary objective, which was enunciated time and time again in 2020 by the professionals; get hospital admissions under control. Move the virus from a high conseqence event to a medium consequence event, and allow battered health systems around the world to take a breather. These vaccines have achieved that, and can be considered successful. They cannot be considered sterilising vaccines though, but few vaccines are, when examined with the same microscopic diligence as the covid vaccines have been. For example, measles vaccination is often touted as an extremely successful campaign to reduce deaths in children, and no one of reasonable mind would disagree. Vaccinated children generally don't "get" measles; the proof they don't get measles is the lack of a rash and general malaise associated with a measles illness. But when you poke more deeply, using molecular diagnostic tools which are never routinely used to diagnose measles (why would you, when likely far in excess of 90% of specimens would return positive), the measles virus is still circulating, still infecting. But vaccination means children don't develop illness.

COVID-19 is the illness, Sars-Cov-2 is the cause, a bit like the relationship between AIDS and HIV.

What is different in the COVID-19 Pandemic is that from the outset, pretty much the most sensitive molecular tool was made available, before other diagnostic techniques, ie PCR. PCR is exquisitely sensitive. PCR is the cornerstone of most nation's defence against biological weapons. PCR enables cancers to be accurate diagnosed. PCR allows the right cancer drug therapy to be used. PCR identifies criminals. Its a terrific technique. But has its problems. The major issue, in the context of the Pandemic, is its difficult to use to distinguish between an active infection and inactive viral debris in some people.

PCR quickly became the go to means to define cases. Antigen detection or serological tests would have needed much more time to develop; you have to immunize scores of animals, test blood titers, and then harvest blood, perform cell cloning, screen again and again. By my reckoning, from the point you had sufficient antigen to work with, through to getting your monoclonal antibodies up and running, you were looking at 3 months, in addition to isolating and propagating the virus itself. Effective antigen tests did not appear until the second half of 2020.

Without PCR, the world would have been stuck in the same situation Wuhan found itself in the first few months of 2020; healthcare systems in total collapse, diagnostics limited to whatever CT scans could be run, and much much poorer standard of care, and worse outcome.

If Antigen testing though had become the primary means of presumptive diagnosis, the uninformed hoi polloi would have a different conclusion about vaccines.

PCR tests, thanks to synthetic biology, don't need actual virus in order to design the primers. You just need virus code. In clinical diagnostics, it is unheard of to row back from a diagnostic test to a worse diagnostic test (antigen testing typically has worse specificity and sensitivity, and, as we all know now, cannot be easily modified to account for emerging variants).

The vaccines used were amazing. Even the Chinese vaccine was amazing, for an inactivated virus botch job. Now we wait for the next generation of vaccine, which will tackle the sterilizing aspect (hopefully, but remember, for many vaccines, it can take decades to come up with something that actually sterilises, and we have a tall order, considering the benchmark, in the eyes of the hoi polloi and chattering classes, is a PCR negative.

China, and New Zealand to an extent, took a mistake with early zero-Covid policies. They are backed into a corner where they are entirely dependant on vaccine uptake to reduce hospital admissions. In a free society, it is impossible to get 100% uptake; ultimately people will decline if they don't want it, even if there are societal restrictions. Hence the riots in Leicester in the 1860-70s over the Vaccine Act (the Act in the UK that made it compulsory for children to be vaccinated against Smallpox). Even in an authoritarian society, like China, it will be impossible to get 100% uptake; there will be a significant portion of the population that you really can't vaccinate for medical reasons (same reasons the BCG jab isn't given to very young children and the immunocompromised).

Very early on in the Pandemic, government ministers in the UK and US tried to reassure the population that they were in the best possible position to deal with a Pandemic. There was understandable hubris in those statements, which were born out of a John Hopkins exercise to test and rate national resiliance. Those ratings fell away when the cases piled up in the US and UK. US and UK pandemic planning, like most places in the West (including Norway) was based on a reasonable assumption  that a flu-like virus was be the causative agent. The Influenza virus transmits rather differently to Sars-Cov-2, and may will recall the endless debate and semantics over aerosol versus airborne transmission. That difference meant hospital infection control plans went into the bin. At the time, the UK was (rightfully) criticized for lacking a diagnostics industry, and look how wonderful Germany was doing. Well, Germany was doing well, thanks largely to the Federalised nature of its Public Health system. However, the response of the US and the UK was exactly what the John Hopkins study predicted, that high performance institutions swung into action, and set the standard. The UK went gangbusters on diagnostics, setting up innovative fully automated Lighthouse megalabs to facilitate population level testing. Germany ramped up, but was soon overtaken by the UK, due to the limitations of the German public health service.

From my position I can actually quantify where innovations against COVID came from and where they didn't. China hasn't done anything of note, except, reluctantly, report the first cases; nearly didn't happen at all. Russia's biggest contributions were running out of materials for their booster shots, and incinerating a ward of COVID patients after jury rigging one ventilator to many patients. Substantially, nearly all the innovations, whether vaccine, therapeutic, patient management, diagnostic, have come from those top ranked countries in the John Hopkins, for obvious reasons, both related to institutional reputation and cultural advantage (an example of cultural advantage; when doctors at University College London realised COVID patients didn't have inelastic lungs like typical ARDS patients, and so needed oxygen more than mechanical ventilation, leading to an F1-loving doctor rooting around in the basement for an old Philips CPAPS mask, and approaching the F1 Mercedes team down in Surrey, and getting them to come up with reverse engineerring it, with a filter on the exhaust unit. A low cost plastic moulding was designed, the design desseminated for free, and thousands of lives saved. Probably the major reason why warehouses are now full of unwanted ventilators and Nightingale dying rooms were never needed. A combination of Institutional Initiative, Capitalist innovation and Anglo Saxon fortitude. This would never have happened in China, because a junior physicians would never have questioned the chief, would never have gone down in the basement, would never have thought of cross-industry seeding of ideas, and not followed the thinking of the great Maltese physician Edward de Bone, and his "lateral thinking" craziness.

Niall Ferguson goes on about this, about why the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain and not elsewhere. Often he uses the term Protestant, but really he means British Protestant, as a code for Anglo-Saxon.

 

China has not allowed the virus to circulate, so there is very little "natural" immunity in the population, and so they are entirely dependant on vaccines, and have gotten themselves into a hole. They won't get out of this on the basis of a 5 year plan, but only by someone deciding to ignore the plan.

 

New Zealand; their Public Health people would have been talking to oppos in London, and probably had the same instincts about closing the borders or not. It was obviously a tempting proposition to politicans, as closing the NZ borders is so easy. They've been trying a form of managed virus circulation, in order to try and boost natural immunity levels, to supplement vaccine uptake. Hindsight should have told them that there would always be more vaccine resistance among Maoris.

 

 

[Wanderer]

Possibly Niall Ferguson says Protestant because he means it occurred in a Protestant country not a Papist one. 

[palooka]

4 hours ago, lspab said:

No, not the case at all.

China was the first to get out a vaccine, Sinovax. They followed a fairly conventional approach or using inactivated whole virus. However, they did this without a decent human cell expression system, opting for a chimp cell expression system. Essentially, SArs-Cov-2 was infected into a chimp cell line.  Virons are replicated. When Viruses replicate, they "pinch" a bit of RNA sequence from the host cell. The replicated virus was not 100% identical to the original, and the bits that were changed were not the same bits that are subject to normal selection pressure when the virus is in circulation in a human population.

Sinovac elicited a mixed response that wasn't as effective as other vaccines due to epitope mix.

The other vaccines have worked. That is plain to see through reduced ICU admissions, and reduced admissions due to COVID-19 (the latter is more difficult to quantify, because hospital admission stats also include those who have tested positive, but who were not actually admitted because of COVID).

These first S-Protein vaccines had a simple primary objective, which was enunciated time and time again in 2020 by the professionals; get hospital admissions under control. Move the virus from a high conseqence event to a medium consequence event, and allow battered health systems around the world to take a breather. These vaccines have achieved that, and can be considered successful. They cannot be considered sterilising vaccines though, but few vaccines are, when examined with the same microscopic diligence as the covid vaccines have been. For example, measles vaccination is often touted as an extremely successful campaign to reduce deaths in children, and no one of reasonable mind would disagree. Vaccinated children generally don't "get" measles; the proof they don't get measles is the lack of a rash and general malaise associated with a measles illness. But when you poke more deeply, using molecular diagnostic tools which are never routinely used to diagnose measles (why would you, when likely far in excess of 90% of specimens would return positive), the measles virus is still circulating, still infecting. But vaccination means children don't develop illness.

COVID-19 is the illness, Sars-Cov-2 is the cause, a bit like the relationship between AIDS and HIV.

What is different in the COVID-19 Pandemic is that from the outset, pretty much the most sensitive molecular tool was made available, before other diagnostic techniques, ie PCR. PCR is exquisitely sensitive. PCR is the cornerstone of most nation's defence against biological weapons. PCR enables cancers to be accurate diagnosed. PCR allows the right cancer drug therapy to be used. PCR identifies criminals. Its a terrific technique. But has its problems. The major issue, in the context of the Pandemic, is its difficult to use to distinguish between an active infection and inactive viral debris in some people.

PCR quickly became the go to means to define cases. Antigen detection or serological tests would have needed much more time to develop; you have to immunize scores of animals, test blood titers, and then harvest blood, perform cell cloning, screen again and again. By my reckoning, from the point you had sufficient antigen to work with, through to getting your monoclonal antibodies up and running, you were looking at 3 months, in addition to isolating and propagating the virus itself. Effective antigen tests did not appear until the second half of 2020.

Without PCR, the world would have been stuck in the same situation Wuhan found itself in the first few months of 2020; healthcare systems in total collapse, diagnostics limited to whatever CT scans could be run, and much much poorer standard of care, and worse outcome.

If Antigen testing though had become the primary means of presumptive diagnosis, the uninformed hoi polloi would have a different conclusion about vaccines.

PCR tests, thanks to synthetic biology, don't need actual virus in order to design the primers. You just need virus code. In clinical diagnostics, it is unheard of to row back from a diagnostic test to a worse diagnostic test (antigen testing typically has worse specificity and sensitivity, and, as we all know now, cannot be easily modified to account for emerging variants).

The vaccines used were amazing. Even the Chinese vaccine was amazing, for an inactivated virus botch job. Now we wait for the next generation of vaccine, which will tackle the sterilizing aspect (hopefully, but remember, for many vaccines, it can take decades to come up with something that actually sterilises, and we have a tall order, considering the benchmark, in the eyes of the hoi polloi and chattering classes, is a PCR negative.

China, and New Zealand to an extent, took a mistake with early zero-Covid policies. They are backed into a corner where they are entirely dependant on vaccine uptake to reduce hospital admissions. In a free society, it is impossible to get 100% uptake; ultimately people will decline if they don't want it, even if there are societal restrictions. Hence the riots in Leicester in the 1860-70s over the Vaccine Act (the Act in the UK that made it compulsory for children to be vaccinated against Smallpox). Even in an authoritarian society, like China, it will be impossible to get 100% uptake; there will be a significant portion of the population that you really can't vaccinate for medical reasons (same reasons the BCG jab isn't given to very young children and the immunocompromised).

Very early on in the Pandemic, government ministers in the UK and US tried to reassure the population that they were in the best possible position to deal with a Pandemic. There was understandable hubris in those statements, which were born out of a John Hopkins exercise to test and rate national resiliance. Those ratings fell away when the cases piled up in the US and UK. US and UK pandemic planning, like most places in the West (including Norway) was based on a reasonable assumption  that a flu-like virus was be the causative agent. The Influenza virus transmits rather differently to Sars-Cov-2, and may will recall the endless debate and semantics over aerosol versus airborne transmission. That difference meant hospital infection control plans went into the bin. At the time, the UK was (rightfully) criticized for lacking a diagnostics industry, and look how wonderful Germany was doing. Well, Germany was doing well, thanks largely to the Federalised nature of its Public Health system. However, the response of the US and the UK was exactly what the John Hopkins study predicted, that high performance institutions swung into action, and set the standard. The UK went gangbusters on diagnostics, setting up innovative fully automated Lighthouse megalabs to facilitate population level testing. Germany ramped up, but was soon overtaken by the UK, due to the limitations of the German public health service.

From my position I can actually quantify where innovations against COVID came from and where they didn't. China hasn't done anything of note, except, reluctantly, report the first cases; nearly didn't happen at all. Russia's biggest contributions were running out of materials for their booster shots, and incinerating a ward of COVID patients after jury rigging one ventilator to many patients. Substantially, nearly all the innovations, whether vaccine, therapeutic, patient management, diagnostic, have come from those top ranked countries in the John Hopkins, for obvious reasons, both related to institutional reputation and cultural advantage (an example of cultural advantage; when doctors at University College London realised COVID patients didn't have inelastic lungs like typical ARDS patients, and so needed oxygen more than mechanical ventilation, leading to an F1-loving doctor rooting around in the basement for an old Philips CPAPS mask, and approaching the F1 Mercedes team down in Surrey, and getting them to come up with reverse engineerring it, with a filter on the exhaust unit. A low cost plastic moulding was designed, the design desseminated for free, and thousands of lives saved. Probably the major reason why warehouses are now full of unwanted ventilators and Nightingale dying rooms were never needed. A combination of Institutional Initiative, Capitalist innovation and Anglo Saxon fortitude. This would never have happened in China, because a junior physicians would never have questioned the chief, would never have gone down in the basement, would never have thought of cross-industry seeding of ideas, and not followed the thinking of the great Maltese physician Edward de Bone, and his "lateral thinking" craziness.

Niall Ferguson goes on about this, about why the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain and not elsewhere. Often he uses the term Protestant, but really he means British Protestant, as a code for Anglo-Saxon.

China has not allowed the virus to circulate, so there is very little "natural" immunity in the population, and so they are entirely dependant on vaccines, and have gotten themselves into a hole. They won't get out of this on the basis of a 5 year plan, but only by someone deciding to ignore the plan.

New Zealand; their Public Health people would have been talking to oppos in London, and probably had the same instincts about closing the borders or not. It was obviously a tempting proposition to politicans, as closing the NZ borders is so easy. They've been trying a form of managed virus circulation, in order to try and boost natural immunity levels, to supplement vaccine uptake. Hindsight should have told them that there would always be more vaccine resistance among Maoris.

Thanks for the input.  Long but good read.

Covid I think will linger for a few years more creating its form of medical chaos for some populations particularly China.  The vaccination programs were haphazard and reactionary and the future will tell their benefits to humanity.

At the end of the day, I  still believe Chinese creation, Chinese downfall.

Sometimes it is the little things that bring down future empires.

[Rookiescot]

33 minutes ago, palooka said:

Thanks for the input.  Long but good read.

Covid I think will linger for a few years more creating its form of medical chaos for some populations particularly China.  The vaccination programs were haphazard and reactionary and the future will tell their benefits to humanity.

At the end of the day, I  still believe Chinese creation, Chinese downfall.

Sometimes it is the little things that bring down future empires.

The west went with a program of vaccinations and for those unwilling natural immunity. 

China on the other hand has none of that because their vaccinations dont work and not enough of the population has been exposed because of previous lockdowns.

So China has a choice. Either stay locked down (massive damage to the economy) or expose the population to the virus (massive damage to the economy).

Either way its stuffed.

When the Chinese economy (which is built on a house of cards) collapses the country is going to implode.

[DiJoDavO]

On 9/1/2022 at 4:08 PM, Manu said:

Hopefully the World has now learned from that kind of madness and will not get back to that ever!

I remember some on the Thaiger would love to live in that situation

[lspab]

1 hour ago, palooka said:

Thanks for the input.  Long but good read.

Covid I think will linger for a few years more creating its form of medical chaos for some populations particularly China.  The vaccination programs were haphazard and reactionary and the future will tell their benefits to humanity.

At the end of the day, I  still believe Chinese creation, Chinese downfall.

Sometimes it is the little things that bring down future empires.

Looking at historical precedant, it can go either way. The Black Death in England resulted in an explosion of economic activity. The emergence of Flu in ancient Greece might have contributed to its downfall, or it might not have.

 

COVID-19 has a lot in common with previous pandemics and epidemics. Flu came to humans when someone in Greece figured out pigstys were more efficient that letting swine graze on the hills. The Black Death in the 13th Century coincided with the emergence of mercantile cities. The Plague with the growth of London as an important city (and spread it seems because increased prosperity meant more cloth was sent out from London to tailors in the country, to make into nice suits). 1918 Spanish Flu started in 1917, in rural China, when the British and French recruited coolies for the Western Front, and transported them via Canada and Kansas, and they arrived in Europe just in time for the end of war, when there was a move to get the wounded home as soon as possible..... The 40 year Polio pandemic was brought about by improvements in sanitation, leading to reduced natural immunity (the middle class was disproportionally affected). 1957 Mao Flu I feel can be related to the Chinese Civil War a decade later, and the later Hong Kong flu to the Cultural Revolution, in both cases leading to movements of peoples.

COVID-19 I feel will be an example of a change in human behaviour. Not a lab creation, lab escapee; I've worked in these BSL3/4 labs, and know there are too mang checks, both process and physical, to mean a lab leak, while it can't be ruled out, need to jump through a few incredible hoops.

Wuhan is a Chinese City few outside of China would have heard of. But in the era of globalisation, this industrial city had become a centre for the textile industry and automotive parts industry, leading to increased links to Italian companies around Milan and German companies such as Siemens. The increased prosperity lead to the residents gaining a taste for expensive cuts of meat that were just treats in their childhood. And so a vibrant wet market, but a wet market that was long established with no particular history of disease outbreak.

But you add another element of Chinese prosperity; increased investment from Western Banks after the events of 2008, in particular, investing more in industrial scale farms. This has resulted in a surge of livestock farming. About the same time, both China and South Korea were experiencing a swine flu outbreak, which lead to cull of the entire pig population in both countries (some pretty distressing scenes of pigs in Korea being buried alive. Which is a bit worse than  British farmers chasing cattle with a bolt gun during FMV). But you have a recipe of a farmer with a small holding, the sort who goes to the local market, just like the UK, being pushed more onto cheap land, maybe near a forest which has seen little human contact (95% of the microbial world is completely unknown to us). There are some reports that the Sars-Cov-2 virus may have been found in bat guano pits being dug in the area.

There was a combination of new human behaviours; farming/mining activities in new areas, increased demand for particular meats, a Chinese New Year when everything was going well, Western Executives being in town to celebrate the New Year with their Chinese colleagues. I think in the end there will be nothing surprising about the story (but it will take a long time to figure out).

Some really odd activities can cause a spike in disease. In the early 1990s, Eastern Europe saw a spike in serious tick-borne illnesses. There was speculation whether this was an indicator of climate pressures. But the explanation was simple, and to do with Communism. Prior to the Iron Curtain coming down, huge parts of Central Europe were forbidden military areas. Increased freedom meant access was opened up, leading to more people entering these areas, which had seen little human contact for 40-50 years, to go hiking, hunting, foraging. Change in behaviour lead to more tick bites and disease. Simplez.

 

[rc1]

6 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

The west went with a program of vaccinations and for those unwilling natural immunity. 

China on the other hand has none of that because their vaccinations dont work and not enough of the population has been exposed because of previous lockdowns.

So China has a choice. Either stay locked down (massive damage to the economy) or expose the population to the virus (massive damage to the economy).

Either way its stuffed.

When the Chinese economy (which is built on a house of cards) collapses the country is going to implode.

I think it'd be less "stuffed" for their society overall if they let it rip.

It'd be over in a few weeks, with most of society infected. 

What happened in N Korea with a similar situation? Covid went through ( who knows how many died but vast majority eldery) but didn't seem to create a catastrophe.

 

 

 

[rc1]

5 hours ago, lspab said:

Looking at historical precedant, it can go either way. The Black Death in England resulted in an explosion of economic activity. The emergence of Flu in ancient Greece might have contributed to its downfall, or it might not have.

COVID-19 has a lot in common with previous pandemics and epidemics. Flu came to humans when someone in Greece figured out pigstys were more efficient that letting swine graze on the hills. The Black Death in the 13th Century coincided with the emergence of mercantile cities. The Plague with the growth of London as an important city (and spread it seems because increased prosperity meant more cloth was sent out from London to tailors in the country, to make into nice suits). 1918 Spanish Flu started in 1917, in rural China, when the British and French recruited coolies for the Western Front, and transported them via Canada and Kansas, and they arrived in Europe just in time for the end of war, when there was a move to get the wounded home as soon as possible..... The 40 year Polio pandemic was brought about by improvements in sanitation, leading to reduced natural immunity (the middle class was disproportionally affected). 1957 Mao Flu I feel can be related to the Chinese Civil War a decade later, and the later Hong Kong flu to the Cultural Revolution, in both cases leading to movements of peoples.

COVID-19 I feel will be an example of a change in human behaviour. Not a lab creation, lab escapee; I've worked in these BSL3/4 labs, and know there are too mang checks, both process and physical, to mean a lab leak, while it can't be ruled out, need to jump through a few incredible hoops.

Wuhan is a Chinese City few outside of China would have heard of. But in the era of globalisation, this industrial city had become a centre for the textile industry and automotive parts industry, leading to increased links to Italian companies around Milan and German companies such as Siemens. The increased prosperity lead to the residents gaining a taste for expensive cuts of meat that were just treats in their childhood. And so a vibrant wet market, but a wet market that was long established with no particular history of disease outbreak.

But you add another element of Chinese prosperity; increased investment from Western Banks after the events of 2008, in particular, investing more in industrial scale farms. This has resulted in a surge of livestock farming. About the same time, both China and South Korea were experiencing a swine flu outbreak, which lead to cull of the entire pig population in both countries (some pretty distressing scenes of pigs in Korea being buried alive. Which is a bit worse than  British farmers chasing cattle with a bolt gun during FMV). But you have a recipe of a farmer with a small holding, the sort who goes to the local market, just like the UK, being pushed more onto cheap land, maybe near a forest which has seen little human contact (95% of the microbial world is completely unknown to us). There are some reports that the Sars-Cov-2 virus may have been found in bat guano pits being dug in the area.

There was a combination of new human behaviours; farming/mining activities in new areas, increased demand for particular meats, a Chinese New Year when everything was going well, Western Executives being in town to celebrate the New Year with their Chinese colleagues. I think in the end there will be nothing surprising about the story (but it will take a long time to figure out).

Some really odd activities can cause a spike in disease. In the early 1990s, Eastern Europe saw a spike in serious tick-borne illnesses. There was speculation whether this was an indicator of climate pressures. But the explanation was simple, and to do with Communism. Prior to the Iron Curtain coming down, huge parts of Central Europe were forbidden military areas. Increased freedom meant access was opened up, leading to more people entering these areas, which had seen little human contact for 40-50 years, to go hiking, hunting, foraging. Change in behaviour lead to more tick bites and disease. Simplez.

Great prose, do you have a blog and where can we subscribe?!?!

[Rookiescot]

2 hours ago, rc1 said:

I think it'd be less "stuffed" for their society overall if they let it rip.

It'd be over in a few weeks, with most of society infected. 

What happened in N Korea with a similar situation? Covid went through ( who knows how many died but vast majority eldery) but didn't seem to create a catastrophe.

The health care system could not cope with letting it rip.

[HolyCowCm]

Just another ongoing push of the CCP's iron fisted control. I am sure their people love them sooooo much.

[NorskTiger]

Many good things to day about China, but I do not, for a second, understand why they are so obsessed with control of a virus to the point that they do so drastic measures for a few cases of a virus. 

       To some extent, I find Thailand also is reacting too drastically for my sake. Still, I wear mask in BTS, even now when it is not mandatory. Mainly because I don't want to stick out and simply is not capable or willing to sit down and argue about it. 

           There shall be a time when epdemiological and virological studies and reports will figure out what the real thing actually was as put into perspective. This is probably something where retrospective studies will be very good. 

[EdwardV]

14 hours ago, NorskTiger said:

Many good things to day about China, but I do not, for a second, understand why they are so obsessed with control of a virus to the point that they do so drastic measures for a few cases of a virus. 

China has so few cases because of its drastic measures. At this point they can’t throw open the doors and let it run free. You would be talking tens of millions in deaths in just a few months, and the overwhelming of Chinas inferior healthcare system. After spending the last two plus years explaining to the world Chinas superior model in dealing with the Chinese virus, it’s politically a non starter. The loss of face would be too great. 

[NorskTiger]

"tens of millions of deaths in just a few months" sounds a bit of a hyperbole. Do you know how many have died with diagosed Covid infection so far in the entire world?

  The entire ordeal with covid and lockdowns, vaccine regimens and effectiviness continues to be a matter of much politics rather than health policies. I don't want to be too harsh with the Chinese authorites, because they remain stellar caretakers of their own public systems, but I look forward to a time when this entire thing can be analyzed and looked at in an open and welcoming fashion. 

   

[Giltee]

On 9/1/2022 at 4:44 PM, EdwardV said:

Millions of people in areas surrounding China's capital were ordered into lockdown on Tuesday (Aug 30), with the authorities doubling down on efforts to contain Covid-19 ahead of a key ruling Communist Party in October. Nearly four million people in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, were ordered to stay home until the end of the week as officials rush to curb a small virus flare-up. And more than 13 million in the neighbouring port city of Tianjin must undergo mass testing from 6am local time, after 51 mostly mild cases were reported.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-imposes-covid-19-lockdowns-for-millions-around-beijing

There are several areas and major cities under some form of lockdown. Basically China has no other choice. Their vaccines barely worked against the original virus and are completely worthless against the variations. Ironically they were and are so successful with lockdowns few people have built any immunity to the virus. The CCP has already stated the intent to keep the zero covid policy for another five years. About the time it will take them to fully develop, test and inoculated most of the population with a home grown MRNA vaccine. I have heard some speculation things like lighten up slightly after the major party conference in either October or November. I kinda think it’s more wishful thinking than anything else. Until they drop the policy, they will lurch back and forth from open to close all across the country. All while breaking China’s ties to the global economy piece by piece at the same time. Oh btw Apple has decided to build its IPHONE 14 in India. If you can’t reliably deliver products, people will go somewhere that can. 

They’ve been assembling a lot of their iPhones in India since iPhone 11. Parts are made in various countries but mainly China. Let’s hope they make all parts in countries other than China. 

[Giltee]

On 9/4/2022 at 9:34 AM, EdwardV said:

China has so few cases because of its drastic measures. At this point they can’t throw open the doors and let it run free. You would be talking tens of millions in deaths in just a few months, and the overwhelming of Chinas inferior healthcare system. After spending the last two plus years explaining to the world Chinas superior model in dealing with the Chinese virus, it’s politically a non starter. The loss of face would be too great. 

They have no immunity to covid because of their zero policy so to throw open the doors would see it run rampant. 

[Poolie]

23 minutes ago, Giltee said:

They have no immunity to covid because of their zero policy so to throw open the doors would see it run rampant. 

'It' is largely harmless now, so what would the consequences be? Added to which, this notion of  no immunity is baseless. I went for a test yesterday as I'm going in hospital tomorrow and, skinflint that I am, I didn't want to pay at hospital.  So I stood in a line with about 40 souls and came home to a negative test result from a roadside testing station.

The reason why China hasnt opened up  like the rest is obvious when you consider this:

https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2210161545/