The Morning with the Morning: When Covid isn’t Gone, It’s Not: The Chinese Public’s Frustrated Halo Embrace Revisited

The Chinese government has told its people for three years that hiding behind a lock-down is the only way to escape the virus. Now, as the country rolls back lockdowns and stops testing its citizens so stringently, the number of infections is almost certain to hit unprecedented levels.

I will start a book leave before this is my last newsletter. I’ll be back in the middle of January. I’m looking forward to reading the work of other Times journalists, The Morning will be written by them until then.

There seem to be two main explanations for the drugs’ underuse. The first is that the public discussion of them has tended to focus on caveats and concerns, rather than on the overwhelming evidence that they reduce the risk of hospitalization and death. The second explanation is that many Americans, especially Republicans, still do not take Covid seriously.

Fighting back tears, she shouts abuse at the hazmat-suited workers below in a video that has recently gone viral on social media platform Weibo and which appears to encapsulate the Chinese public’s growing frustration with their government’s uncompromising zero-Covid policy.

The woman has been under quarantine for half a year since returning from university in the summer, she shouts at the workers. They stare back, unmoved.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Zero Covid Protest was a Successor for a Great Leader, Not a Slave, not a Hero

While most Asian economies are abandoning the restrictions on tourism caused by the H1N1 virus, the Chinese government remains adamant that the battle is not over.

The Communist Party Congress beginning in Beijing on Sunday is the most important political event of the year, and it is just days before there are flare infections and a new strain.

Observers across the world will be watching the twice-a-decade meeting for signs of the party’s priorities when it comes to its zero-Covid stance, which has been blamed for exacerbating mounting problems in the economy, from stalled growth to a collapsing housing market.

Nerves are high in China’s capital, where online photos posted Thursday appeared to show an exceptionally rare public protest against Xi. Say no to the Covid test and yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. Yes, to vote, no to a great leader. One banner was hanging over an overpass telling people not to be a slave and to be a citizen.

The search result for “Sitong Bridge” was quickly deleted by the Weibo platform. Before long, key words including “Beijing,” “Haidian,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were restricted from search.

The account on Weibo that commented on the protest have been banned.

Still, many spoke out to express their support and awe. Some shared the Chinese pop hit “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, who some called a “hero,” while others swore never to forget, posting under the hashtag: “I saw it.”

Xi’s Covid Planck Revisited: The Problem isn’t Here, But It’s Been Learned

But, now, as Xi steps into an expected new era of his rule, that system – known today as the “dynamic zero-Covid” policy – is facing both social and economic pushback.

25 million people in one city have already been locked up and as authorities begin to tighten the measures again, they are on edge.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll, a Chinese health official said, in a narrow definition that limits the number of deaths reported, as an outbreak of the virus surges following the easing of pandemic-related restrictions.

Spooked by the possibility of unpredictable and unannounced snap lockdowns – and mindful that authorities have previously backtracked after suggesting that no such measures were coming – some people in the city have reportedly been hoarding drinking water.

The announcement that the water authorities in Shanghai have taken action to ensure water quality has made panic buying worse.

The exact cause of the increase in infections is not known, though they are trying to stop the spread of the strain after it was first found in China.

The country has seen an increase in cases of domestic tourist destinations even though it has discouraged people from visiting over China’s Golden Week holiday.

The Department of Education of Inner Mongolia said that more than 240,000 university students were stuck on campuses due to the latest outbreak. The university Communist Party boss was sacked after 39 students from his institution tested positive for the disease.

In the western part of China’s Xinjiang Uygur region, 22 million people have been barred from leaving and are required to stay. Xinjiang recorded 403 new cases on Thursday, according to an official tally.

Beijing seems unwilling to change its hard-line stance. For three days this week, the state-run Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published commentaries reiterating that China would not let its guard down.

It insisted the battle against Covid was winnable. Other countries that had reopened and eased restrictions had done so because they had no choice, it said, as they had failed to “effectively control the epidemic in a timely manner.”

How big is Big Data? Three years of Xi’s Communist Party in China: what it took to turn it into a light

Nearly three years later, however, Xi is poised to cement his place as China’s most powerful leader in decades, when he is anointed with a likely norm-breaking third term as the party chief on Sunday.

As China’s Communist Party National Congress meets this week to approve the party’s priorities for the next five years, many are watching for signs restrictions could be loosened. Any change would have to come from the top and be the result of a leader who had sought to extend the party’s control on daily life.

China’s advanced online ecosystem – run on mobile phone superapps and ubiquitous QR codes – has offered arguably unrivaled convenience for consumers to shop, dine and travel. Those technologies are helping to limit daily life.

At the end of this long tunnel, it all feels like a light. Scanning QR codes every time I entered a building, daily tests, and the constant thought that I could be sent to a quarantine facility for being a “secondary close contact” (being near someone who has interacted with a positive case), have all dominated the majority of my time in China.

Basic activities like going to a grocery store, riding public transport, or entering an office building need to be carried out with an up-to-date, negative Covid test in order to be considered a close contact of a patient.

Going out in public can be dangerous, as being placed under quarantine or barricaded by authorities into a mall or office building as part of a snaplock could simply depend on whether someone in the general vicinity ends up testing positive or not.

A Shanghai resident surnamed Li said that big data has flaws because it has control over his daily life.

Li, who had been with his wife at the time, said that they were able to get in touch with a hotline and explain their situation, ultimately returning her health code to green.

What Do We Need to Know Before Congress? The Challenge of Zero-Covid Policies for the People’s Health and the Welfare of the People

“The essence of persisting with dynamic zero-Covid is putting people first and prioritizing life,” read a recent editorial in the People’s Daily – one of three along similar lines released by the party mouthpiece last week in an apparent bid to lower public expectation about any policy changes ahead of the Party Congress.

The comment about not being on that late-night bus one day, which received over 250,000 likes before being edited, was a glimpse into rising anger with the cost of the policy.

A rare political protest took place last week in Beijing, where banners were hung from a bridge on the Third Ring Road, alluding to the social controls under the policy.

Speaking before 2,300 mostly surgical-mask clad members of the Communist Party at the opening of a five-yearly leadership reshuffle on Sunday, president Xi said the party has protected the health and safety of the people.

The impactof those controls is becoming sharper, as they have made it harder for people to gain access to medicine, and have made them struggle to keep their heads above water.

Local authorities around the country had to deal with an outbreak of disease as they prepared for the Party Congress.

Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health said that maintaining the zero- Covid strategy is more expensive because the latest strains are transmissible much more frequently.

The zero- Covid policy may be dropped, but some of the key components of the policy can be retained and re-used.

The focus on containing the virus for three years left China little prepared to treat the infections. “Other measures, especially vaccination of the elderly [and] stockpiling of antivirals, were all relegated to a back-burner issue,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow following public health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

On top of that, she says she’s young, she’s not afraid of COVID-19 anymore, she doesn’t feel the need to get a shot until China re-opens to the world and she believes the virus is changing too quickly for the vaccines available in China — all of them made in China — to have decent efficacy.

“The vaccines take time, the ICU expansion takes time – and if you don’t see effort to prepare for the change, that implies that they are not planning to change the policy any time soon,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

A Chinese citizen recalls the death of his father, whose father had died in hospital three days before the global ban on carbon dioxide repealed

The health code system has been used to help diffuse social protest, with petitions losing their savings in rural banks after their health codes inexplicably turned red.

After nearly three years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing, China abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy this month following nationwide protests over its heavy economic and social toll.

Ben Cowling of the University of Hong Kong states that the guidelines do not lift testing requirements for international travellers, if the objective is no longer zero carbon dioxide.

The government said it had reported 10,535 new domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, the highest number in months.

The National Health Commission warned that the epidemic “is likely to further expand in scope and scale” due to mutations and weather factors in the winter and spring.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

After home was locked down on the far outskirts of Beijing on November 1, Zhou saw his father alive in a videotaped chat on the afternoon of November 1.

The apartment building in which Zhou’s parents and his son lived did not have any Covid cases and there was no warning before the restrictions were imposed, he said.

The family found out the hard way, when Zhou’s father was denied immediate emergency medical help after he suddenly began struggling to breathe during the video call. Zhou and his son made a dozen calls for an ambulance, he said, claiming security guards blocked relatives from entering the building to take the 58-year-old grandfather to a hospital.

A young boy died of gas poisoning after being denied access to a hospital in the city of Lanzhou on the same day Zhou’s dad died. Two weeks later, a 4-month-old girl died in hotel quarantine in the central city of Zhengzhou after a 12-hour delay in medical care.

Zhou contacted a number of state media outlets in Beijing to report his story, but no reporters showed up. Amid growing desperation and anger, he turned to foreign media – despite knowing the risk of repercussions from the government. CNN is only using his name to reduce the risk.

Social and Economic Tolls of the Covid Lockdown in the Central City of Zhengzhou: A View from a Lively Liver

In the central city of Zhengzhou this week, workers at the world’s biggest iPhone assembly factory clashed with hazmat-suited security officers over a delay in bonus payment and chaotic Covid rules.

A resident delivered a speech on Thursday about the Covid lock down on his residential compound. “Without freedom, I would rather die!” he shouted to a cheering crowd, who hailed him a “hero” and wrestled him from the grip of several police officers who had attempted to take him away.

Many Chinese football fans have only been able to watch the World Cup in the country from their home due to restrictive policies but these acts of defiance reflect a lot of discontent online.

“None of the fans are seen wearing face masks, or told to submit proof of Covid test results. Are they the same people as we are? It was questioned whether China was behind zero-covid, which went rage before it was banned.

There are signs that Chinese officials are feeling the heat of the growing public discontent, which came on top of the heavy social and economic tolls inflicted by the widening lockdowns.

Instead of relaxing controls, many local officials are reverting to the zero-tolerance playbook, attempting to stamp out infections as soon as they flare up.

The northern city of Shijiazhuang was among the first to cancel mass testing. It also allowed students to return to schools after a long period of online classes. Authorities told residents to stay home Monday because of the increased cases over the weekend.

The financial hub of Shanghai banned anyone from entering the city for five days. In half of the city, there are cultural and entertainment venues shut down.

In Guangzhou, there was a fifth time that the district was locked down and its most populous district was locked down.

Despite relaxed rules, restaurants were mostly closed or empty in the capital. Many businesses are having difficulties finding enough staff who haven’t gotten sick. Sanlitun, one of Beijing’s most popular shopping districts, was deserted despite having its anti-COVID-19 fences taken down in recent days.

Huang said he does not expect any fundamental changes to the zero-Covid policy in the short term. Local governments have not changed their incentive structure. They are still held accountable for the Covid situation in their jurisdiction,” he said.

Chinese officials have denied that the guidelines listed in the government are meant to be used for a transition to living with the virus.

Zhou, who is from the outskirts of Beijing, feels that the zero- Covid policy is beneficial to the majority but that it shouldn’t be implemented at the local level.

“I don’t want things like this to happen again in China and anywhere in the world,” he said. I lost my father. My son lost his beloved grandfather. I’m furious now.”

A two-month-long lock-up caused by a citywide zero-Covid relaxation reaction intl-hnk

Workers across China have dismantled some of the physical signs of the country’s zero-Covid controls, peeling health code scanning signs off metro station walls and closing some checkpoints after the government unveiled an overhaul of its pandemic policy.

But as many residents expressed relief and happiness at the obvious loosening of measures, some worried about its impact and questioned how the new rules would be rolled out.

The world has changed overnight, and that is amazing, said a manager at a tech company in Beijing. I feel like we are getting back to the way we were before. This is important to me because if I don’t get back to a normal life, I might lose my mind.”

“How can it change so fast?” Ding asked. “It gives me the feeling that we are like fools. It is up to them. They said it’s good, so then it’s good … that’s what I feel right now. It is so unreal, but I have no choice. All I can do is follow the arrangement.”

David Wang, a designer in the city, said although the changes were welcomed, they had also caused a sense of disbelief in the city, which went through a two-month-long, citywide lock-up earlier this year.

He said that most of his friends are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and that they just can’t believe it is happening.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html

Beijing top health officials defended the change of the vaccine and mass testing measures against the Omicron variant of Covid-19 on Weibo

Top health officials in Beijing on Wednesday said the changes to the rules were based on scientific evidence, including the spread of the comparatively milder Omicron variant, the vaccination rate, and China’s level of experience in responding to the virus.

Last Wednesday, top health officials made a sweeping rollback of the mass testing, centralized quarantine, and health code tracking rules that it had relied on to control viral spread. Home isolation of cases, and health code use in designated places, remain aspects of those measures.

The government and state media had long emphasized the dangers of the virus and its potential long-term effects – and used this to justify the maintenance of restrictive policies.

State media have already begun trying to change everyone’s thinking by downplaying the lethality of the Omicron variant. A huge drive to immunize the elderly is underway at the same time.

Concerns about scarcity and access to medicines and care have been palpable in public discussion, including on social media. A Beijing reporters story of her time in a hospital for Covid-19 treatment caused a social media uproar in China with a related shout out getting more than 93 million views on Weibo since Monday.

The people didn’t know what sort of medicine they should have and what to do when they were struck with the same disease. Sam Wang, 26, a lawyer in Beijing, says that the policy release felt “sudden and arbitrary,” and that they should have started doing it a long time ago.

Bob Li, a graduate student in Beijing, who tested positive for the virus on Friday said he wasn’t afraid of the virus, but his mother, who lives in the countryside, stayed up all night worrying about him. “She finds the virus a very, very scary thing,” Li said.

Meanwhile, his mother was now buying high-grade N95 masks and preparing for a “nuclear winter” until a potential initial wave of cases passed, Wang said.

Implications of the Beijing COVID-19 Lockdowns for Public Health and Social Care in the Era of a Superfluid Season

As local authorities adapt to the guidelines, it has been seen that they are implementing them in different ways.

The Beijing authorities said that a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required if you want to dine at a restaurant or attend an entertainment venue.

The announcement follows protests against the strict lock downs. The new guidelines go further than those of the past, but some cities loosened restrictions on testing.

But researchers say some aspects of the new rules are ambiguous and open to interpretation by local governments, including when and where to test people during an outbreak, what defines high-risk areas and how to manage them.

Experts have warned that as people in big cities return to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year next month, the virus could sweep through China’s vast rural areas, where vaccination rates are lower and medical resources are severely lacking.

The reopening timing is not ideal according to researchers. Winter is peak influenza season so hospitals will already be experiencing a rise in the number of patients. And many people will also be travelling across the country for next month’s Lunar New Year and spring festival, further increasing viral spread, says Xi Chen, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies China’s public-health system.

The number of patients went to the clinics went up 16 times over the weekend. Minor illness is common in China where the primary care system isn’t strong.

Without additional support, the eased restrictions might not help businesses to recover from protracted lockdowns or remove the social stigma attached to COVID-19, says Joy Zhang, a sociologist at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. I fear that the health and socio-economic risk will be passed onto individuals.

Urgent guidance is needed on how to curb transmission during a surge, such as through mask mandates, work-from-home policies and temporary school closures, says Cowling. And given the reduction in testing, it is not clear how officials will track whether cities are approaching, or have passed, the peak of an infection wave, he says.

If 85% of the population gets a second vaccine than the incidence of infections could be slowed and the number of deaths reduced. Pushing fourth vaccine doses would reduce deaths by up to 35%, combined with giving antivirals to people at high-risk of developing severe disease.

The Chinese CDC and the Hong Kong government funded the study which shows that with fourth-dose vaccine coverage of 85%, the death toll could be reduced by 26% to 35%.

Covid 19 in China: a case study of Tan Hua’s bite by a dog and its refusal to be given a vaccine

“I have an advantage in that I don’t go to an office to work. I don’t have a job at a company or in a government agency and don’t really come into contact with a lot of people,” she says. I think I protect myself well.

The relatively low number of Covid 19 patients in China, along with the lower effectiveness of the vaccine against Omicron, could enable the virus to spread rapidly.

Product quality issues have plagued China’s manufacturing industry for many years and include its production of pharmaceuticals. Cases like Tan Hua’s resonate.

Tan was bitten by a dog. Her mother, who is Chinese, says they were told the vaccine was the best on the market. It didn’t go according to plan.

Opinions Concerning Vaccine Effectiveness of the COVID-19 Virus and Against Its Consequences in the United States

“That very night she got a headache and dizziness. Her memory declined sharply. She had convulsions. She was not able to see and it was dark for her. “She couldn’t walk straight in one direction.”

They blame the vaccine, and Hua has been on a crusade for justice ever since. She also now avoids all vaccines — including those for COVID-19, of which China has approved 12.

In China, the recent string of product quality scandals is due to the poor oversight and corruption of recent decades.

If Liang was shifting focus to less stringent protocols, another prominent public health expert, Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a pulmonologist who made his name fighting the SARS outbreak, made outright misleading claims about the virus. He went from touting China’s mass quarantine strategy in May to telling a state media outlet that he hasn’t seen cases of COVID-19 causing obvious long-term organ damage.

“Many of those, the vaccine skeptics, are liberal-minded people. They just don’t trust the Chinese vaccines and the government narrative on the effectiveness of the Chinese vaccines,” he says.

Jerry is 33 years old, and he’s a real estate executive in China. The topic was so sensitive that he didn’t want his full name used.

Jerry reckons COVID-19 is “kind of a flu thing” these days; nothing too serious. He believes that there is no point in getting the vaccine since he hasn’t gotten it.

I just think that the virus is changing so fast. He says that not a single vaccine can help because they wouldn’t be able to prevent transmission and save lives.

Jerry estimates that the vaccination rate among his friends — educated, 30-somethings in China’s most cosmopolitan city — may be as low as 60%. He says couples trying to get pregnant are particularly fearful of possible side-effects.

Earlier this year, Shanghai was hit by an omicron-driven outbreak. Multiple people told the AP then that their elderly family members who tested positive for COVID-19 and died were not counted in the city’s official death toll. When patients had underlying diseases, the deaths were attributed to those.

China’s Zero-Covid-19 Impact Impact Health Tracking Function: What Will We Do if We Cannot Go to the Emergency Services Line?

But Huang, of Seton Hall, says the government may be better off bolstering the incentives for people to get the vaccine, and offering assurances of support in case something goes wrong.

The deactivation of the health tracking function was announced on Monday, along with changes to the itinerary card.

It had been a point of contention for many Chinese people, including due to concerns around data collection and its use by local governments to ban entry to those who have visited a city with a “high-risk zone,” even if they did not go to those areas within that city.

There are questions about how the health system will handle a mass outbreak as parts of the zero-covid infrastructure are scrapped.

China Youth Daily reported on hours-long lines at a Beijing clinic on Friday, and wrote about calls for residents not to visit hospitals unless necessary.

A hospital official appealed to Covid- positive residents in the capital to not call the city’s emergency services line if they have any symptoms, as health workers in the capital were also grappling with a surge in emergency calls.

According to media, the number of emergency calls had increased from 5000 to more than 30,000 in the last few days.

Covid was spreading rapidly because of highly transmissible Omicron variant in China, according to a top Covid-19 expert.

“No matter how strong the prevention and control is, it will be difficult to completely cut off the transmission chain,” Zhong, who has been a key public voice since the earliest days of the pandemic in 2020, was quoted saying by Xinhua.

There’s no longer official data to gauge the extent of the spread, because the roll out of testing nationwide and the shift to using tests at home have made the data meaningless.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/china/china-zero-covid-impact-beijing-intl-hnk-mic/index.html

COVID-19 in China: How many people need medical attention? An interview with Beijing You An Hospital, the largest circulating doctor in China

China may not be prepared to handle the expected surge of cases, following the surprise decision to lift its measures after nationwide protests against the policy.

Zhong, in the state media interview, said the government’s top priority now should be booster shots, particularly for the elderly and others most at risk, especially with China’s Lunar New Year coming up next month – a peak travel time where urban residents visit elderly relatives and return to rural hometowns.

China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals’ ability to deal with severe cases because of a surge of COVID-19 cases.

A lack of experience with the virus, years of state media coverage focusing on its dangers and impact overseas, and a recent shift in tone could push those who aren’t in critical need to seek medical care, further overwhelming systems.

The China market watchdog said on Friday that there was a temporary shortage of hot-selling drugs and promised to crack down on price gouging, while the major online retailer said it was taking precautionary measures after sales of certain medications surged 18 times.

A Beijing doctor said that people who did not have any symptoms of Covid-19 would not need to take medication for their recovery, in an interview with the state media.

Some people don’t need medication at all. It is enough to rest at home, maintain a good mood and physical condition An interview with a doctor who works at Beijing You An Hospital has been viewed over three hundred million times since Friday.

Beijing’s response to the Communist Party’s “Going out of the way” campaign: The impact of COVID-19 on social and economic development

In Beijing, as well as several other cities, protesters called for the Communist Party to get out of the way, which is a level of public dissent not seen in decades. The party responded with a massive show of force and an unknown number of people were arrested at the protests or in the days following.

While the relaxation has alleviated some of the stress, it has also raised concerns over a new wave of infections that could overwhelm some health care resources.

After being sent to field hospitals which have become notorious for overcrowding and poor hygiene, the government decided to let those with mild symptoms heal at home.

Reports on the Chinese internet, which is tightly controlled by the government, sought to reassure a nervous public, stating that restrictions would continue to be dropped and travel, indoor dining and other economic activity would soon be returning to pre-pandemic conditions.

There was a fire in Urumqi that left at least 10 people dead. Many believed COVID-19 restrictions may have impeded rescue efforts. Protests gave voice to the longstanding frustration of people in cities such as Shanghai that have experienced severe lock downs.

The economy fell by 2.6% from the previous quarter in the three months ending in June, leading to the promise that the government would reduce cost and disruption. The economy probably isn’t growing anymore in the current quarter. In November, imports dropped by 10.9% from a year ago.

Amid the unpredictable messaging from Beijing, experts warn there still is a chance the ruling party might reverse course and reimpose restrictions if a large-scale outbreak ensues.

The announcement last week made it possible for local governments to put their own regulations in place. In Beijing, the negative test result obtained over the previous 48 hours is still required by most restaurants.

Comment on Lars Hamer’s Life in Guangzhou: A High-Redshift Traveller’s Journey Innocence (Extended Abstract)

Editor’s Note: Lars Hamer is the Editor-in-Chief of the China lifestyle magazine, That’s. He has been living in Guangzhou since the beginning of the year. His own views are expressed in this commentary. Follow him on Twitter @LarsHamer1. Read more opinion on CNN.

My leave my apartment involved a routine similar to that of an aircraft pilot. Check the mask. Anti-viral hand sanitizer: Check. Green code on my smartphone reflecting latest negative Covid test: Check. Courage to actually go outside and risk getting ensnared in an abrupt lockdown somewhere: Check.

I had a good reason to be worried. Just one month ago, a teacher friend of mine and his colleagues were sent to centralized quarantine after one student at his school tested positive for Covid-19. I was worried that it was going to happen to me.

It was nothing of the sort. I did not do well on the Covid-19 test. Before my result came out, I was free to leave my house, and go about my day.

If this had taken place weeks before, I would have been labeled a close contact, and therefore powerless to escape the facility’s vice-like grip.

The first five years of the Communist government: The growth of a bustling metropolis: the case of Guangzhou and the realization of the pandemic

Guangzhou, a city of 15 million people, has been turned into a bustling metropolis for the first time since I moved here five years ago.

The blocking of fire exits in case of a lockdown is forbidden by the new measure. People who are contaminated can stay at home. Quarantine facilities are soon to be a thing of the past.

When friends and family got together in bars and restaurants, they did not have to follow our movements; the barcodes on the walls were being ripped down.

I spent most days working until late at night because it was the only thing to do; non-essential businesses had closed, and millions of people were confined to their homes. I was also starting to feel the strain, so I began to consider leaving the country.

It was a state of utter disbelief. The number of cases in Guangzhou were similar to the ones that resulted in a city-wide lock-back in the month of April.

Concerns about the leadership of China concealing negative information about the pandemic have been raised after the country stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data.

A notice on the commission’s website said it stopped publishing daily figures on numbers of COVID-19 cases where no symptoms are detected since it was “impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected persons,” which have generally accounted for the vast majority of new infections. There are only a couple of confirmed cases they’re reporting.

Beijing’s streets have grown eerily quiet, with lines forming outside fever clinics — the number of which has been increased from 94 to 303 — and at pharmacies, where cold and flu medications are harder to find.

At the China-Japan Friendship Hospital’s fever clinic in Beijing, a dozen people waited for nucleic acid test results. Nurses in full-body white protective gear checked in patients one by one.

A group of people are waiting in a blue tent in the middle of the cold at the hospital just a few kilometers away. A person in the line sprayed a bottle of antiseptic around her as she waited.

The drug shortage has spread from mainland China to Hong Kong, a special administrative region which has a separate system of local government. The health chief of the city urged the public to not buy cold medicines because they do not really need them and to not to overact.

Facing growing skepticism that it is downplaying Covid deaths, the Chinese government defended the accuracy of its official tally by revealing it had updated its method of counting fatalities caused by the virus.

In response to the increased number of COVID-19 cases, the U.S. consulates in China’s northeastern city of Shenyang and central city of Wuhan have been only offering emergency services.

Hospitals were struggling to remain staffed because of a shortage of China’s ubiquitous motorized tricycle delivery drivers, while packages were piling up at distribution points.

The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing on the students, employees and public opinion: A social media comment on a case study

The students will be allowed to finish their semester from home in a bid to keep the COVID-19 outbreak at bay during the January New Year travel rush.

The move follows the government’s dramatic announcement last week that it was ending many of the strictest measures, following three years during which it enforced some of the world’s tightest virus restrictions.

The impact of the outbreak in the city was visible in the upmarket shopping district Sanlitun on Tuesday. The shops and restaurants were operating on skeleton crews, which means they didn’t have customers, and only offered takeout.

Similar scenes are playing out across Beijing, as offices, shops and residential communities report being understaffed or shifting working arrangements as employees fall ill with the virus. Meanwhile, others stay home to avoid being infected.

One community worker told CNN that 21 of the 24 workers on her Beijing neighborhood committee office, tasked with coordinating residential matters and activities, had fallen ill in recent days.

Sylvia Sun said there was not much work being given to her as her superiors were mostly HIV positive. Parent-child activities, lectures, performances and events will not be held.

The NHC said that it is impossible to understand the actual number of infections.

In a Twitter post, Beijing-based lawyer and former American Chamber of Commerce in China chairman James Zimmerman said about 90% of people in his office had Covid, up from around half a few days ago.

The number of patients with flu-like symptoms in the city’s major hospitals increased six-fold between December 5 and 11 compared to the previous week.

The top official in charge of managing Covid in China said during a Beijing inspection on Tuesday that there were only 50 severe and critical cases in the hospitals so far.

Sun made assurances that the supply of medicine would be restored, after a surge in purchases, and called for more fever clinics to be set up.

Hospital should do everything they can to make sure that the health workers in their communities do not get infectious as fast, warned a prominent doctor. Such a situation could result in a shortage of medical staff and infections among patients, he said, according to local media reports.

Social media users questioned why the reporter, who showed her two-bed room and access to fever medicine in a video interview posted by her employer Beijing Radio and Television Station on Sunday, received such treatment while others were struggling.

Awesome! A young reporter gets a space in a temporary hospital and takes liquid Ibuprofen for children that is hard-to-find for parents in Beijing,” read one sarcastic comment, which got thousands of likes.

Stock up of Yiling Pharmaceutical after Beijing’s Communist Party published a warning against Covid using preserved fruit as a cure for fever and cold medicine

People are rushing to buy canned peaches because of rumors that the snack could prevent or treat Covid. Chinese state media has since warned people the preserved fruit is not a Covid remedy nor a substitute for medicine.

Demand for fever and cold medicines, such as Tylenol and Advil, is surging nationally as people rush to stockpile drugs amid fears they may contract the virus.

The Communist Party daily, the People’s Daily, tried to set the record straight. On Sunday it published a post that urged the public not to store peaches because they were useless in aiding symptoms of illness.

The public was also urged to not stock up on medical supplies. The Beijing city government told residents on Monday that it was facing a lot of pressure to fulfill demand for drugs and medical services because of panic buying.

The company’s stock is up 511% so far this month and has gained 21% this week. Yiling Pharmaceutical has gained more than 30% in the past month as a result of the recommendation of the government to treat Covid with a traditional Chinese medicine.

“Our company’s production lines are operating at full capacity, and we are working overtime to produce urgently needed medicines, such as ibuprofen tablets,” Xinhua Pharmaceutical said Monday.

The local brand name for Tylenol, Panadol, has gone out of stock in some Hong Kong drugstores. Most of the buyers were sending the medicines to their families and friends in the mainland, sales representatives told CNN.

Covid-19 and other wins in the 21st century: lessons learned from the growth of funeral services and burial plots in the United States

Even providers of funeral services and burial plots have gotten a huge boost. Shares in Hong Kong-traded Fu Shou Yuan International, China’s largest burial service company, have soared more than 50% since last month.

There is “strong pent-up demand for burial plots” in 2023, analysts from Citi Group said in a recent research report, adding that they’ve noticed increasing investor interest in the sector.

They said that hundreds of thousands of cremated remains are being temporarily stored in government facilities, which are awaiting a burial. A lot of the country has had its funeral services halted.

Dr. Megan Ranney is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and the deputy dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the Postal Service will once again be giving four free Covid-19 tests to every household that buys them through covidtests.gov.

Four tests per family are not a lot. But they are illustrative of a larger group of ongoing wins against Covid-19 – outside of vaccination – that should be celebrated, and then examined closely for lessons learned.

The first fact that has been overlooked is that rapid testing for Covid-19 is now available to almost every single person in the country. Performing an at-home test before you go to a holiday party, a few days after you’ve been exposed to the virus or when you’re feeling ill reduces the chance of unintentional virus spread.

It was in the spring of 2021 when at- home testing became available to the public. They were expensive and very hard to find at that time. Not surprisingly, huge disparities in use were observed in those early months. Low-income people and minorities were less likely to use them.

Thanks to the flexibility of a public health emergency declaration given to the FDA in early 2020, hundreds of at home Covid-19 tests now have emergency use authorization, and there is ample availability.

Insurers, including Medicare, reimburse consumers for up to eight tests per month per person. The ICATT, or the Increasing Community Access To Testing program was developed to provide free community testing at more than 15,000 sites (including pharmacies, libraries, and grocery stores) across the United States. More than half of tests performed through this program are for uninsured people, says one government official. There are similar programs with low-income senior housing, food banks, schools and health centers.

The Failures and Successes of Covid-19 and its Implications for Telehealth and Hospitalization in the Era of a New Partnership

A new partnership was announced last week by Walgreens, Door Dash, and Uber Health that will allow for the delivery of Paxlovid to those who don’t own a pharmacy. The program can reach 90 percent of the Americans according to Walgreens. In combination with existing prescription delivery services from CVS and RiteAid, this newest partnership may reduce the chance that someone sick has to go out and expose others in order to get their Paxlovid prescription. It benefits those who can’t get transportation or child care, and those who are disabled.

Partly due to bureaucracy, there remains no FDA-approved rapid antigen or molecular home tests for influenza or RSV. Additionally, oseltamivir (commonly known as Tamiflu) is not as effective as Paxlovid, and there are no good treatments for RSV. Moreover, telehealth has already been shown to increase over-prescription – and unnecessary prescription – of some treatments, such as antibiotics; any wider scale test-to-treat program would have to be careful to make sure it doesn’t further worsen overuse of antivirals and antibiotics. It is much riskier to get other types of telehealth and prescriptions than to get Covid-19 tests and treatment, as one has to pay out of pocket.

Maybe, just maybe, both the failures and the small successes we’ve seen in the midst of Covid-19 can lead us to a space where even more public health innovation can occur.

There are also developments to celebrate this holiday season. We now have some tools that can reduce disease and illness, and they are truly available to everyone.

Under the current conditions, a nationwide reopening could result in up to 684 deaths per million people, according to the projections by three professors at the University of Hong Kong.

The research paper, which has yet to receive peer review, said the surge of infections would likely overload many local health systems.

Simultaneously lifting restrictions in all provinces would lead to hospitalization demands 1.5 to 2.5 times of surge hospital capacity, according to the study.

They were the first officially reported deaths since the dramatic easing of restrictions on December 7, although Chinese social media posts have pointed to a surge in demand at Beijing’s funeral homes and crematoriums in recent weeks.

An employee at a funeral home on the outskirts of Beijing told CNN they were swamped by the long queues for cremation, and customers would need to wait until at least the next day to cremate their loved ones.

China’s massive COVID epidemic: Expected mortality, public health interventions, and future risk for future students in the financial hub and southern metropolis

Other major cities are also facing a surge in infections. Most classes will be online in the financial hub ofShanghai from Monday. In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, authorities have told students that are already taking online classes and pre-schoolers not to prepare for a return to school.

Public sector workers who have tested positive for Covid can go to work in the megacity of Chongqing, which has been in a mass lock down for a couple of weeks.

Chinese experts say that’s going to get worse. The end of this month will be when the most severe and deadly cases of COVID will peak, according to Wang GuangFA, one of the country’s top respiratory specialists. One Shanghai hospital warned residents that it was preparing for up to half of the city’s population to be infected by next week.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing on Saturday, Wu said the current wave would run until mid-January. The second wave is expected to last from late January to mid-February next year, triggered by the mass travel ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls on January 21.

The largest annual human migration on Earth happens every year when hundreds of million of people who have left their hometowns to move to China’s fastest growing cities rush to see their families.

“It is never too late to flatten the curve,” says Xi Chen, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies China’s public-health system.

Deaths that occur in patients with pre-existing illnesses are not counted as COVID-19 deaths, said Wang Guiqiang, the head of infectious disease at Peking University’s No. 1 Hospital.

The two studies broadly agree on mortality estimates and the impact of interventions, says Cameron. “This similarity in large part reflects an agreement that herd immunity will only be achieved after a large, and difficult to contain, spread of transmission throughout the entire country.”

The vast majority of patients who are positive for the Omnicron variant won’t be reclassified for a long time. Studies suggest protection against reinfection declines dramatically over time and most people will be reinfected every one to two years.

Why China reverses its zero COVID policy after 10 years? Online comment on “Doesn’t salt water rinse debunked two years ago?”

The Chinese internet was attentive to the about-face. The post juxtaposing several experts’ TV appearances before and after policy change has received more than 100,000 views.

The member of the commission famous for refusing to shut down Shanghai because of the disease outbreak is getting apologies online.

Whiplash aside, much of the online discussion has moved to how to deal with the aftermath of the policy change, including what preventative measures and treatments are available.

Untested remedies to fight COVID have again flourished in recent days. An internal medicine doctor who’s a member of China’s prestigious Academy of Engineering recommended the unproven method of rinsing out your mouth using iced salt water daily. The online commenters were confused. “Wasn’t salt water rinse debunked two years ago? Does the iced version make a difference? One wrote in a post.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1143413739/confusion-and-falsehoods-spread-as-china-reverses-its-zero-covid-policy

The chaos and uncertainty around COVID-19: What do scientists need to know about the disease? A case study of China’s social media diaspora

The chaos and uncertainty right now reminds Chen Wenhong, an associate professor of media studies and sociology at University of Texas, of the atmosphere in early 2020 when COVID was first spreading. “It’s kind of flying in the dark.”

Additionally, non-state media outlets are vulnerable to government crackdowns. After it was suspended from social media platforms in August, the online health information outlet that debunks health myths and criticized the government’s promotion of traditional Chinese medicine was named “Ding Xanyuan,” a name that describes its reputation. Its accounts are not available on the popular Chinese social media site.

The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, cited a report in the Daily Mail that did not have evidence that vaccine manufacturer Moderna manufactured the virus. The coverage of the virus was extensively cited by the Global Times, which attacked other theories about the origins of the virus and the one that claimed it leaked from a government research lab. Other smaller social media accounts made videos of the report, putting “British Media” in the headlines.

“The Chinese diaspora has played a very useful role here to share with people back in China about their personal COVID experience,” Chen says, “knowing that in most cases it will not be that serious.”

She points out that while researchers and journalists often pay attention to social media discourse, many rural, often elderly residents rely on television and family members in larger cities to stay informed. Many are vulnerable to the disease, live in places where healthcare resources are scarce, and aren’t adept at finding information on social media.

As NPR reported, public health authorities don’t base their messages for the public entirely on science – many considerations are also pragmatic and culturally-based.

Chen says that scientists have some searching to do in the next few years. “If we know that politics is going to play a role in public health and also in science, how do we conduct ourselves? What do we think about our ethics?

An investigation by the AP found that the way health authorities tally COVID-19 statistics have been clouded by a variety of factors, including a less transparent standard, and the way Shanghai defined positive cases.

Social Distancing Policies in China: Does it Matter if the Lunar New Year comes to an End? The Case of a Chinese Grandparent

“Right now, no reputable hospital in Beijing has free beds,” the grandson said. The topic of COVID deaths is in China and so he didn’t want to be named. China reported no deaths from COVID that weekend after his grandfather died two hours after checking into the hospital.

They have advised that authorities should be on the cautious side when counting deaths. Problems in death counts have raised questions in countries ranging from South Africa to Russia.

“I really don’t think the village doctors, or even the township or county hospital, can handle the increased number of severe cases,” says Huan Wang, a researcher at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. The rural villagers are left to their own in a dark winter.

As the Lunar New Year approaches, health officials are concerned the celebrations could turn into superspreader events, catching rural systems off guard and driving up infections in a country where natural immunity is nearly non-existent and vaccine hesitancy has remained stubbornly high among the older population.

The public needs to be aware that this is coming, since people will travel to rural areas in the new year,” says Ali Mokdad, an Epidemiologist.

A model released by the University of Hong Kong last week predicts that up to one million deaths will occur if China does not maintain social distancing policies.

“As the experts say, just set off some fireworks, have a good party and scare away the virus,” says Sun Caiyun, an ebullient restaurant owner in Beijing who says she is intent on heading back to her home village in the northern Shandong province – COVID or not. I’m planning on coming home, because Beijing does not allow fireworks.

Li said that people from the cities have been buying all of their medicines at his pharmacy, or they’ll order online and have it mailed to them. The nearest hospital is two hours away, and she’s most concerned about her asthmatic grandparents.

The number they are willing to show the number of deaths is not only ridiculous, it is close to laughable according to Ray Yap, an epidemiologist who founded the Center for Disease Control’s office in China.

Hospitals that NPR visited in Beijing this week were busy but orderly, with a handful elderly patients in the lobby lying in gurneys hooked up to intravenous bags because beds had run out.

The health care system has held up in large cities due to the fact that many migrant workers don’t have urban health insurance.

“You just have to suck it and keep it for a week,” says Zhang Xiaohu, the delivery worker who contracted COVID. He says he worked through his symptoms, because he does not receive paid sick leave and could not afford to go to a Beijing hospital. “Being a delivery guy means you have to be the kind of person who dares to risk their lives.”

One man waiting in line said his grandfather started running a fever last week and tested positive for COVID, but they spent days looking for a hospital that could take him.

The figures cited were presented during an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Wednesday, according to both outlets – which cited sources familiar with the matter or involved in the discussions. The NHC summary of Wednesday’s meeting said it delved into the treatment of patients affected by the new outbreak.

On Friday, a copy of what was purportedly the NHC meeting notes was circulated on Chinese social media and seen by CNN; the authenticity of the document has not been verified and the NHC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s deputy director Sun Yang made the presentation to the officials during a closed-door meeting, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Beijing to start distributing Pfizer Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the city’s community health centers next week: a closed-door NHC report

In the first twentieth days of December, the NHC reported only 62,592 cases of Covid cases.

The NHC guidelines only state deaths due to pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting a new disease are considered Covid deaths, Wang said at the news conference.

The minutes of the Wednesday closed-door NHC meeting made no reference to discussions concerning how many people may have died in China, according to both reports and the document CNN viewed.

China has stopped most public test booths, meaning there is no estimate of the scale of infections in the country.

Beijing will begin distributing Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the city’s community health centers in the coming days, state media reported Monday.

The state-run China News Service reported Monday that after receiving training, community doctors will administer the medicine to Covid-19 patients and give instructions on how to use them.

The notice from officials was received, but it was not known when the drugs would arrive, the employee at the local community health center said.

An emergency room doctor in Beijing told the state-run People’s Daily on Thursday that four doctors on his shift did not have time to eat or drink. “We have been seeing patients nonstop,” he said.

Another emergency room doctor told the newspaper he had been working despite having developed fever symptoms. The doctor said that the high number of patients and lack of medical staff made the pressure go up.

Hundreds of healthcare professionals from all over China have traveled to Beijing to help with the city’s medical system.