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.

I do not want to see any more restrictions ( I accept the English lockdown in November) but I would not like to see anything else restricting our freedoms and rights.

But you are likely to see more lock downs if quarantine isn’t enforced more strictly.

The point of test and trace is to stop spread by isolation. Otherwise you are just gathering data.

There is a third option which is letting everyone get the virus and increasing health service capacity to cope, but the fact that we are going into lockdown now demonstrates that infection levels can’t be maintained at a manageable level simply with current restrictions.

(Unless you think Johnson is lying, which seems unlikely because there is no political advantage to choosing lockdown now - it’s too late for people who generally support lockdown, and is obviously not supported at all by people who support a strategy of herd immunity)

China has a vaccine. I teach overseas now and have a few Chinese students. One of them has a brother in China that has had a vaccine. He had to pay for it.

@vanillandhoney

Because they literally welded people into their homes and would do so again if necessary. They will also happily arrest and possibly kill anyone who refuses to comply.

Do you really want to live like that?

I thought buildings were electronically sealed, so they could tell if you left, but not actually physically welded shut

I posted on here that I wasn't happy about my partner breaking the tier rules and lots of posters piled on me saying I was controlling.

Yes, the chinese have a vaccine: two shots are required, rmb 200 for each one. Zhejiang province had details of where residents of yiwu city could be vaccinated. Limited numbers, but also open to foreigners so assume this was a type of trial.
Doors were electronically sealed or sometimes just had paper put across the front door of flats.

So if they have a vaccine why have they kept it for themselves then?

They have a vaccine in clinical trials, apparently.

Meanwhile here we are in a country that was filled with Covid from China, and are dithering about what to do now.

Honestly if there was a complete lockdown and a China like approach that keeps us ok I would be for it. China is 9 months down the road.

We are just floundering because we think we are a democracy. Honestly who is doing better?

BTW I am not in favour of Chinese style authoritarianism, but they are doing something right. Their citizens can move around and do their own thing now, but if they step out of line, they know the consequences.

Here? Find every excuse to ditch the rules and no one will question it. We are fkd.

In China people follow the rules - because they are genuinely afraid of severe consequences if they do not.

How many people in the U.K. are afraid of anything much happening if they disregard the rules, or refuse to wear a mask?

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

In China people follow the rules - because they are genuinely afraid of severe consequences if they do not.

How many people in the U.K. are afraid of anything much happening if they disregard the rules, or refuse to wear a mask?

I’m certainly not going to deny that China is an authoritarian, anti democratic regime with a grim HR track record.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can learn from how they (and, I repeat, other countries including New Zealand) have tackled Covid.

It is not true that it is all down to fear and enforcement. There is a difference in nature in the approach to test, trace and isolate. We need to recognise that. We have spent £12bn on a track and trace system that is wholly unfit for purpose. Other countries have taken other approaches and have been more successful.

It will be years before vaccines allow the R number to come down enough to resume normal life. It is not too late to learn from our mistakes. Isolating people who test positive, and their close contacts, needs to be the absolute priority. A change of approach is needed or we will be in lockdown for the next 12 months, or beyond.

At present compliance with self isolation and quarantine is extremely low in the UK, particularly among men and younger age groups. This is putting all of us at risk.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.15.20191957v1

I would also add that while the government has tried to ramp up messaging to young people (with Hancock’s clumsy ‘don’t kill granny’), I don’t recall any specific messaging to men. This is hardly surprising given the government we have, from Raab who has repeatedly demonised feminists, to Johnson who can’t keep his trousers on. This is not a group of men adept at recognising their own shortcomings, or at accepting responsibility for anything.

@cyclingmad

So if they have a vaccine why have they kept it for themselves then?

In the same way the UK will get first crack at the Oxford vaccine, the Chinese will keep theirs for themselves first.

Unfortunately it's far to late for a very strict lockdown to work. The virus is endemic throughout Europe and frankly even countries that had a severe lockdown- I'm thinking of Spain because that's where I have friends and I read the Spanish media- is having a bad second wave. I personally don't think our problems are due to having an exceptionally selfish population ( just the other side of British exceptionalism imo, we are either the best or the worst when actually we're just an average country, good and bad )

I have read some articles over the past few days suggesting that Europe is affected by a few particular strains of covid that have mutated

I think some people just want a very simplistic answer- if people obeyed the rules everything will be fine!

No, it's a virus and it seems to be having a particularly bad effect on Europe atm. Sometimes shit happens

In the same way the UK will get first crack at the Oxford vaccine, the Chinese will keep theirs for themselves first

China is involved in a P3 trial involving 30,000 people from across the middle east plus their own indigenous trials, Chinese medical tech is as good if not better than Western tech plus they ve been studying CV for years, we haven't.
Next will be countries in Africa/Asia China has been involved with whilst the US and Europe has gone inward.

China is in the ascendency, the West is in decline.

Strict government and people being more 'obedient' generally

For everyone saying things are back to normal in China, is it completely back to normal? We've had many here people go on holidays and travel to see friends and family, days out at theme parks, bars and restaurants have been busy. Any social media pictures would show all this as looking pretty 'normal' on the face of it without showing all the restrictions and masks.

Are China having parties, sporting events with fans, concerts and nightclubs? I did see evidence of the pool party in Wuhan. Normal is when we can fully get back to pre-Covid.

They still wear masks on public transport, which there are complaints about.
Different regions have opened up at different speeds. Hong Kong schools have only gone back recently.

Masks are only compulsory on public transport. Although some people continue to wear masks when they are out this is not mandatory.
My dh is still working for a Chinese joint venture and no restrictions in place re work. His staff all went back at the end of Feb. His staff in HK have been in and out of work depending on case numbers. At my dc’s former school parents are now allowed back on campus, but must have a green health code. The one key restriction is travel in and out of China.
I have seen Halloween parties, weddings (no masks) school sporting events all take place. I believe numbers have been capped for museum visits, galleries, etc but no idea large scale sporting events.

I have a friend who is from Singapore, she wipes images from her phone and when she goes to events and wants to do recreational drugs

If she was taking such drugs in Singapore she'd be up for a long prison sentence and if she was carrying more than a few grams would automatically be guilty of drug dealing and liable to the death penalty. Singapore is possibly the only place in the world that I've been where a woman can walk the streets drunk at 2am and be perfectly safe. Go figure.

The pp who state so emphatically that china is lying ignore the fact that the current uk and us governments also lie, rather a lot, ably assisted by much of the mainstream media.

Having worked in several parts of asia and hopefully gained some understanding of Chinese culture, honour and technological achievements I don't find anything unrealistic in statements about how much better thsy have controlled covid.

Do I believe boris & co saying they are following the science/have an oven ready deal etc? As much as i believe trump claiming the us has turned the corner.

@frankieStein402 no this is outside Singapore. She lives there her whole life and moved out to work in Europe so she know what she is talking about.

The pp who state so emphatically that china is lying ignore the fact that the current uk and us governments also lie, rather a lot, ably assisted by much of the mainstream media.
Exactly

I'm honestly amazed that some people believe the news coming out of China

And could they say whether the Chinese media cover what is happening in Xinjiang or Hong Kong? Or the situation with Taiwan?

Presumably if they are getting all the facts about covid19, these will be discussed too?

China are so disciplined. We have all seen the videos on YouTube of the three year olds playing grade 8 piano. We know that they get into Oxbridge in ridiculous numbers. They just have a different mentality to us that just gets shit done.

Two reasons:

1. The people follow the rules, unlike here. In China, when you get told to self isolate, they stick paper over your door so you can’t go out without ripping the paper. Here, people knowingly travel with covid, even our government advisers and MPs.

1. The Chinese government’s statistics are a work of fiction. Remember when the Chinese govt said that there was no evidence of human to human transmission? Given what we now know about how incredibly infectious it is (and what bloggers inside China said at the time about people dying in hospital corridors), and that China was hosing Wuhan pavements with bleach shortly after, seems like maybe they weren’t being entirely open.

That said, their government is competent and ours is not. They all put on face masks in January. In late summer we were still mumbling about whether there was ‘proof’ that face masks work. They locked down properly. We never even fully closed schools.

@MagicoRomantico

China are so disciplined. We have all seen the videos on YouTube of the three year olds playing grade 8 piano. We know that they get into Oxbridge in ridiculous numbers. They just have a different mentality to us that just gets shit done.

There are over a billion Chinese people, so you'd hope a few of them would "get shit done".