Mad conspiracy theory

[PupInAPram]

I'm usually a very level headed, rational person but...... I'm starting to wonder if China's 'zero Covid' policy is because Chinese leaders have information about the longer term behaviour/effects on society of an 'endemic/living with the virus' policy?

is because Chinese leaders have information about the longer term behaviour/effects on society of an 'endemic/living with the virus' policy?

Such as?

Honestly, buggered if I know. I just can't understand why they aren't pursuing the vaccinated population, living with it route that seems to have worked so well in other countries. I'm triple vaccinated and never had Covid. I'll get every vaccine I'm offered in future too, so I'm not that kind of mad conspiracy theorist. I'm just genuinely baffled about why China is still pursuing zero Covid so rigidly?

Simply - because they are China.

It's China.

They are an autocratic country.

They generally go for the control option over anything.

The more probable cause of what they’re doing is the disruption Chinese lockdowns cause for global supply chains. As if enough damage had not been done already.

Less effective vaccine, and a health infrastructure that simply wouldn’t cope.

I’ve wondered this too. Are they practising totalitarianism, to see how much the ‘elite’ aka the Party can get away with?

TBH, I wondered this about the Canadian (over) reaction to the Truckers, and about some of our own regulations and enforcement ( park benches taped off, non essentials banned from purchase). Plus the continual changing of the narrative ( for example, Javid threatening to fire non vaccinated NHS workers, and then suddenly boom! That is all over and he never said it anyway…)..

i know that some of this is ‘just politics’ , as in both Starmer and Hunt advocating more severe lockdowns, and a few weeks later criticising the whole principle. But there is an underlying removal of personal autonomy which I find very worrying.

I assume it's because the government can't bear to admit they were wrong.

It's just a much more extreme version of our lot pursuing an 'it was a work event' policy for so long, even after everyone in the world knew it was bollocks.

Well, there are long-term, marked health/brain/organ effects on a reasonable percentage of cases, even asymptomatic cases, and perhaps they don't want to stuff their workforce now and in the coming decades. A stitch in time approach.

@milkyaqua this is what I fear I guess.

@boys3 but isn't the information they need to make their vaccine more effective in the public domain. Delivery of the vaccine should be fairly straightforward as well, in a country with authoritarian centralised control? You don't need highly trained medical professionals to deliver the vaccines?

I don’t think this at all.

it’s a face-saving exercise that will fail.

Autocratic government that is used to being able to control everything runs up against something uncontrollable and don’t know what to do except to clamp down on their own people. Because that’s what they do for every problem.

This does slightly worry me too. Inam triple vaccinated yet am on my third bout of covid in 6 months! First time o was pretty ill (delta I guess), second and third time pretty mild. But second and third time really noticeable change to smell and taste. Certain things I still can't eat since the first time as they taste really weird. That means this virus has dome something to my nervous system which appears ro be permanent. That makes me uneasy.

Apparently a while back there was a lot of issues with shipping and someone thought there was an oversupply of 'stuff' in china and countries weren't buying it (American has high inventory at the moment for imported goods), so harsh lockdowns reduce supply and therefore increase prices. There were ships held in ports for ages.

I'm not sure how much truth there is in this, but since you like a good theory I thought I'd throw it in!

As pp have said, China is an autocratic country and it is a handy tool to punish/control people. I'm afraid we have broken the seal with lockdowns now and they will be more commonplace.

This is the country that implemented the (now abandons) one child policy and is leading the world in space exploration. Surely these things both speak to their ability to deliver a successful national vaccination programme if they chose to.

abandoned

I think the main reason your theory doesn't stand up is that China really doesn't care about its people that much. Even if it turned out that Covid knocks 20 years off your life expectancy... from their point of view, so what? They've got people to spare and they're less useful anyway by that age.

We're over two years in now, and nothing we've seen about the longer term effects would be scary enough to worry China. OK, they'd have a handful (relatively speaking) of long Covid sufferers, but they could easily ship those people off to 'rest and treatment camps' and still have workers to spare. (Haven't heard from your ailing granny for a few years? Don't worry, she's just having too much fun in the camp to write!)

Have been to China. Not allowed tonise Facebook etc. No freedom of speech. A totalitariian state eveb before covid. Beautiful place but it's not about covid, it's about control and always has been.