Why doesn’t China have a second wave?

[Custardcream67]

China had the initial wave of infections early 2020 then hardly any cases since. Their population is much bigger than UK. How can they have it so under control. Seems suspicious to me.

[ShanghaiDiva]

Whereas we allow those who mess up to keep their jobs..looking at you Dominic.

[ChardonnaysPetDragon]

Don’t trust everything you hear in the western media about China and the Far East. Very anti-East. I like to listen to people that actually live there. You get the true picture. In China, they’ve taken precautions to the point where life is pretty much back to normal.

But do the people who live there get the full picture? When the government controls the media and journalists go missing, how do you know the picture the Chinese public get is the true one?

[Mittens030869]

South Korea and Taiwan have done even better than China at controlling the virus. As has Singapore. People from that part of the world are naturally more law-abiding, and hence track and tracing was more effective.

I have heard it suggested that there was also some immunity to Covid because of their previous exposure to SARS.

[Joswis]

Exactly JinglingHellsBells. Three of my ex students (from when I taught in China) were at Durham university. They haven't returned to the UK. Too dangerous.

I have a friend from Wuhan. Three of her family had covid. They were in a special hospital. Had to test negative 3 times before they were released. Even her mother who was on dialysis had it and recovered. Their medical care was excellent.

[hetanom]

Why hasn't there been a second wave in Chile? Or Indonesia? Etc.

The British (and European) media is so inward-looking that a lot of people really believe the second wave was inevitable and that every country in the world is having one.

[AllPlayedOut]

Do people really want to live like China and think that living under a totalitarian regime is a good thing, regardless of the cost to freedom and human rights? I wonder if the Uighurs are so thrilled to be there?

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/large-covid-outbreak-in-china-linked-to-xinjiang-forced-labour

[Cam77]

@ZaraW
There was undoubtedly a cover up/suppression of facts initially. But the statistics are still more or less reliable. My partner and I do business with Chinese people every day and have been following literally 1000s of Chinese people on WeChat for years. There was no mass cover up of deaths. It only really took a toll on one province out of 27(?).

@ShanghaiDiva
Yep. China has some very serious flaws, but the past 5 years in particular, Western media has been pushing a lot of half truths, exaggerations and outright lies.
Of course, I don't blame them to an extent - in terms of economic power and massive strides in tech China has made huge strides. The EU and US have been very comfy on their little made in China two seat sofa - now China wants a seat.

[ShanghaiDiva]

The reality is life is back to normal in many places. I can only speak with any authority about the city I used to live in, but school is back to normal (I can read the newsletters), friends post pictures of parties, day trips etc. I saw pictures of friends travelling over the golden week holiday in October: Beijing, anhui, Guilin: all looked pretty normal to me.

[TiersTiersTiers]

They enforce quarantine strictly.

They are not full of people who think any rules/the rules/simple guidelines don't apply to them. We see hourly on here someone with a stupid question along the lines of:

'since I am thick/special/purposely being annoying can I meet with my mum/neighbour/friends at my house/their house/the park since there is only 20 of us (but kids don't count) so only 6 of us and anyway I think the rules are dumb and of course I always follow them/used to follow them/cannot be bothered to follow them/they don't work anyway'

[pinkearedcow]

Really interesting to hear from people who have direct experience of the situation in China.


One thing occurs to me reading these posts - lots of people here say that the best way to deal with the virus is to "protect" the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives. I think it is significant that China, which could probably have done this and had compliance, hasn't. It's concentrated on mass testing and ensuring those who need to isolate do so. That does seem to be the way to go.

[AllPlayedOut]

People who seemingly think so little of freedom and rights scare me far more than any virus,

[RoseGold7]

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Don’t trust everything you hear in the western media about China and the Far East. Very anti-East. I like to listen to people that actually live there. You get the true picture. In China, they’ve taken precautions to the point where life is pretty much back to normal.

But do the people who live there get the full picture? When the government controls the media and journalists go missing, how do you know the picture the Chinese public get is the true one?

People that live in China share their experiences of daily life. They have the ability to access media from other countries (I know that some sites are blocked but people aren’t banned from leaving the country and corresponding with others). The government controls quite a lot of the media in the U.K. too. How do you know for sure that we get the full picture here seeing as many Brits only rely on British media? The British media seems to only focus on negative news in Asian countries

[JinglingHellsBells]

The Chinese are generally more compliant because they are under surveillance in a way that would not be acceptable in a democracy.

And it is true that even they may not know the truth.

However, the sanctions they were placed under far exceeded ours.
eg when they were allowed to shop, only one person from the family was allowed out of the house, once a day.

Our friends told us it was coming here and they suggested things like leaving shoes in a quarantine box by the door and using the same pair to go outside so as not to bring the virus into the house on shoes.

In general, they have a more obedient nature and have a greater respect for the rules compared to Europe.

This is not necessarily a good thing per se as they are also lied to and brainwashed, but in terms of Covid it's certainly helped.

[flaviaritt]

AllPlayedOut

Definitely. Most people have absolutely no idea what it would be like living under a regime. Told what medication they have to take, forced to end pregnancies, told where they can or can’t live, liable to be murdered or sent to camps for dissent. They are talking about things they don’t understand.

[Cam77]

@ChardonnaysPetDragon
No they don't get the full picture. IMO people in the West are marginally better informed by Western media about the situation in China, than those in China are informed by their media of realities in the West. But currently I'd say it's only marginally. Huge distortion in both directions.

[JinglingHellsBells]

@RoseGold7 In China you cannot access whatsapp or google.

[johnsnowmemo]

It's a tiresome myth that everyone blithely obeyed them. I do wish that people would stop romanticising WW2 www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33566789*

Your comment was in response to during the 2nd WW apparently we had more restrictions in terms of rationing, freedom, work than any other nation, which were enforced/followed by the British People and you will see that this says clearly that the rules were either (/) enforced (and your linked article broadly agrees) or followed by the british people. Society and leadership at that time was fundamentally different. Not "perfect" but leadership was stronger and the people followed rules more. Do you agree? So neither a tiresome myth nor romanticising to point out the differences.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

@merrymouse

Also no one is allowed in without completing government quarantine and can only come in with both negative Covid test in last 3 days and a negative antibodies test.

The common feature of all countries that have low rates seems to be enforcing strict quarantine.

However, I still think its reasonable to mistrust information from the Chinese government, and that the relevance of anecdotal information is limited in a country that is so big.

This.

I've got a friend from another east asian country who was there at the start of the year and one of the very first things that she said was that the government don't work on the assumption that people have common sense. They work on the idea that there will enough people that don't that it causes a problem.

The other thing that seems to happen is that they consider new restrictions at a much earlier point. Even the bits of the UK that we think are low at this point look terrible compared to their stats.

[ShanghaiDiva]

@flaviaritt
I know exactly what it’s like as I lived there for 12 years.
have you lived there/been there?

[ShanghaiDiva]

@JinglingHellsBells
You can with a VPN which many, many people use and plenty of free ones in China too.

[ChardonnaysPetDragon]

Of course I don’t always trust the media, they all have their agenda to push.

But I can access different papers, news sites from all over the world and also social media and all that this helps me see what is going on.

Does everyone in China have access to all that?

[ShanghaiDiva]

Controls definitely became stricter over the time I was living there, but with a VPN you have access to uk media, Facebook, google etc.

[johnsnowmemo]

People who seemingly think so little of freedom and rights scare me far more than any virus
There is a difference between people wanting temporary laws in order to keep a virus under control until there is a vaccine, and people who think nothing of freedom and rights. We have had laws in our country for many decades which are in place to protect the greater good at the expense of some freedoms. Having rules in place in a way which follows good science is not going against a general principle that freedom of will and freedom of choice is good where it does not infringe others' rights. You can be wary and fearful, that is understandable, but it would be worth you also listening to what the leading scientists - who are not partisan or involved in politics - are saying here.

[JinglingHellsBells]

@ShanghaiDiva Not always- they pull that too. My friend is Chinese and she visits her family as well as going on business trips.. At times she cannot contact the West at all, depending on location.

[AllPlayedOut]

No I don't agree. In spite of all the furore on MN many people are obeying rules now(No matter how incredibly pointless and ridiculous many of them are) and many obeyed them during WW2 but it's clear from that source and others that this image of everyone all obediently obeying them was not the case. Look at how crime increased during the Blackouts and how the Black Market thrived for just two examples. Yet people on MN still seem to use their fantasies of how people supposedly behaved during WW2 as a weapon to beat others over the head with. It's definitely a time period that is heavily romanticised by many.