ryan cooperit’s an absolute bloodbath in China https://news.sky.com/story/crematoriums-guarded-by-police-as-china-fights-to-hide-true-toll-of-failed-zero-covid-policy-12771420
"I’m reading things from friends of mine in Beijing, and 80 to 90 percent of the people they know already have COVID. If that figure is transferred to elderly people it’s just going to be a catastrophe." https://prospect.org/world/what-now-for-china-kurlantzick-interview/
"several models predict that a half million people could die, possibly more." h/t @stephenjudkins https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/15/1143002538/china-appears-to-be-facing-what-could-be-the-world-s-largest-coronavirus-outbrea
Free Speech Abolitionist@ryanlcooper no wonder Chinese officials were trying so hard to contain the virus. They buckled under public pressure to ease restrictions, but thankfully there are plenty of tested vaccines and treatments now. Won’t look anything like early breakouts in the US and other countries that refused to shut down
whetstone@organizingpower my understanding is that the chinese vaccines are far less effective
Randall@whetstone @organizingpower
And for seemingly (almost certainly) political reasons, China refuses to utilize western vaccines
And for seemingly (almost certainly) political reasons, China refuses to utilize western vaccines
@Randall @organizingpower it’s really disturbing how Chinese leadership has decided that politics is more important than their peoples’ lives
@Randall @whetstone lmao at the idea that China—which has been lambasted by US corporate media for the past 2 years for doing universal testing and shutdowns—is putting “politics above people’s lives”
@whetstone @Randall Fauci went on national TV in May 2020 and said there was no reason for people to wear masks, and you have the gall to accuse the Chinese govt of not caring about lives? Get fucked buddy
Adam Gurri
@organizingpower @whetstone @Randall I’m sure they jailed people for trying to draw attention to the original outbreak for humanitarian reasons
@whetstone @Randall @adamgurri the US has over 1,100,000 deaths under Fauci’s watch, while China has under 5,000–despite having 4x the population. Are you dense?
@adamgurri @Randall @whetstone also lol at “jailing people”—as if the US isn’t the prison capital of the world
@organizingpower @Randall @whetstone Does American mass incarceration make it a good idea, or a not-politically-motivated one, to jail people for pointing out there's an outbreak of a new disease?
@adamgurri @Randall @whetstone I love the underlying premise of your question—that America’s mass incarceration isn’t politically motivated. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m not going to defend everything China does. But the US are the real baddies in the world, not China.
@organizingpower @Randall @whetstone that’s not the premise of anything I’ve said :) anyway, the Uyghurs thank you for your zealous defense of the Chinese dictatorship
@Randall @whetstone @adamgurri the thousands of children locked in cages and separated from their families thank you for zealous defense of the American regime
@organizingpower @Randall @whetstone I know that your only move is to deflect any criticism of China by criticizing America, but if you had read any of the words I actually said, you'd note I never actually tried to defend America at any point. I simply asked you to take ownership of your defense of China. Recall you thought the idea that they made COVID decisions politically to be absurd. Do you still defend that position?
@whetstone @adamgurri @Randall yes, it’s totally absurd to suggest that China has been politically motivated in “Covid decisions,” at least compared to every other country on earth. There are plenty of valid criticisms of China, but (unlike the US) they have moved heaven and earth to protect their people from Covid and they should be applauded for that.
@adamgurri @Randall @whetstone every decision a government makes is inherently a “politically motivated” one. The US’s political motivations largely aligned with giant corporations, while China’s largely aligned with human beings staying alive. But please, tell me why I’m wrong
@organizingpower @Randall @whetstone you’re wrong because they haven’t allowed more effective vaccines and they haven’t even done much to vaccinate with the crappy one they have. Hope this helps.
@whetstone @adamgurri @Randall ohhh is the US allowing Chinese vaccines? Can I go to CVS or Walgreens and get a Sinopharm vaccine??
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
One is not like the other
One is more effective against omicron
If they were moving heaven and earth, they'd approve of western vaccines
But, they haven't, and likely won't for the foreseeable future, because, politically, they believe the risks of higher death counts don't outweigh using less effective, but homegrown vaccines
If everything a country does is political, then so is that
@Randall @whetstone @adamgurri I’m sorry I didn’t hear an answer for why, in a “free market” society, I should be prohibited from taking the Sinopharm vaccine. Wonder why I can’t. Must be a “political” decision to protect the profits of US pharmaceutical companies
@Randall @whetstone @adamgurri lol ok, so China is bad for not buying US vaccines, but US can block Chinese vaccines bc something something China bad. Got it!
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
Don't make me tap the sign again
@organizingpower @whetstone @Randall who cares? I thought you said China was aligned with keeping people alive. What does it matter if the US is stopping their vaccine? What does that have to do with China keeping human beings alive?
@whetstone @adamgurri @Randall China has their own vaccines and has vaccinated far more of their people (90%) than the US (70%) https://apnews.com/article/health-china-beijing-covid-0ad4ad8851cb1cea47a67abd16024c15
China races to vaccinate elderly, but many are reluctant
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities are going door to door and paying people older than 60 to get vaccinated against COVID-19. But even as cases surge , 64-year-old Li Liansheng said his friends are alarmed by stories of fevers, blood clots and other side effects.
@organizingpower @whetstone @Randall Their own less effective vaccine. Are you capable of defending a single choice they've made without deflecting by saying "US Bad"? Should they or should they not have used the more effective vaccines?
@adamgurri @whetstone @Randall they may be slightly less effective but they are much easier to store (not to mention a fraction of the cost). And 90% of people vaccinated with Sinopharm is far more effective on an aggregate level than 70% with Pfizer/Moderna/J&J. When was the last time you tried to inoculate 1,400,000,000 people?
@whetstone @adamgurri @Randall yes. In fact, Sinopharm is just as effective as J&J, which is authorized by the FDA. Riddle me that, guy who manually added a verification checkmark for himself lmfao
“Overall, Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines were found to be effective in limiting hospitalizations for acute cases of coronavirus”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9532618/
Effectiveness of Pfizer/BioNTech and Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines in reducing hospital admissions in prince Hamza hospital, Jordan
There is a need to establish the effectiveness of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines in reducing COVID-19-related hopitalization of patients in Jordan. As the vaccination program accelerates, it is important to determine whether the vaccines' ...
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
look, I know you just spent, like, an hour scouring the Internet finding one study that shows that these two are similar in one hospital
But, see, there's something called bivalent boosters and RNA vaccines have shown to be more effective than inactivated vaccines
Now, please go Google for another hour or two trying to prove the Chinese vaccines are still as good
@Randall @whetstone @adamgurri “the protection [of bivalent boosters] is not as high as that provided by the original vaccine against earlier coronavirus variants” https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/22/health/vaccine-effectiveness-bivalent-boosters-cdc/index.html
New boosters add limited protection against Covid-19 illness, first real-world study shows
Updated Covid-19 boosters that carry instructions to arm the body against currently circulating Omicron subvariants offer some protection against infections, according to the first study to look at how the boosters are performing in the real world. However, the protection is not as high as that provided by the original vaccine against earlier coronavirus variants, the researchers say.
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
Your need to defend the Chinese government has got you blinkered
Your need to defend the Chinese government has got you blinkered
@Randall @whetstone @adamgurri anyway, I love that I’ve been getting yelled at for hours by two white men about how China, which has less than 1% of Covid deaths than the US, doesn’t care about its own people
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
lol white
Man, I wish
I could have the same tankie confidence as you
@organizingpower @whetstone @adamgurri
The best thing about the Internet is when white tankie dipshits starts calling calling brown people white because they don't have anything else to resort to
@adamgurri @Randall @whetstone don’t make me tap the sign again https://masthead.social/@organizingpower/109592554538967251
Free Speech Abolitionist (@[email protected])
It’s amazing how much of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US is just thinly veiled racism.
@organizingpower @adamgurri @whetstone you can't even make a coherent joke, you smooth-brained idiot
You have to actually say it to the person first, then you make the don't make me tap the sign reference
@Randall @adamgurri @whetstone “smooth brained”—of course you are also an ableist. Because of course you are.
@organizingpower @Randall @whetstone except South Korea and Taiwan had the best response of all, but I know those don’t have the exciting non-democracy aspect to get you amped up
@adamgurri @whetstone @Randall lol try again. Those countries have a death rate 60 times as high as China. China’s death rate is 1.19, while South Korea’s is 62.19, and Taiwan’s is 63.46. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
