Beijing Is Intentionally Underreporting China’s Covid Death Rate (Part 1)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Covid pandemic — its ups and downs, waves and variants – has been the main driver of economic events, and financial market reactions, for the past two years. Positive news like the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine announcements in November 2020 have spurred major market rallies, and worries over new mutations of the virus have provoked sell-offs. We are now entering the phase (we are told) where the pandemic will become endemic – which means we will have to “live with it” and with the countermeasures that will be necessary. The debate is shifting from the medical aspects of Covid to the economic aspect – what price society will have to pay to “live with it” going forward.
This focuses attention on the trade-offs between economic and medical outcomes. And this in turn raises the question of which public health policies are optimal for balancing these concerns. Roughly speaking, the debate is shaping up between “open” policies and “closed” policies – with the U.S. and some other Western societies in the “open” camp, and China notably in the “closed” camp.
Which is best? The answer depends in part on measures of economic performance. The financial markets provide a window on this issue, signaling some level of distress in China. The Hang Seng Index is down 34% against the S&P 500 in the last 6 months, and Shanghai’s CSI 300 is off about 18% against the U.S. benchmark...
In the United States, more than 825,000 people have died from Covid.
China’s official Covid death count is… 4,636.
(Pause right there, to consider that purported Fact.)
The difference in mortality rates is even more shocking. The Chinese government reports a Covid death rate overall of 0.321 per 100,000 population. The U.S. Covid death rate is 248 per 100,000 population – 800 times higher.
Really? Much of the Western media has accepted these figures as valid, and pundits have pondered the gross failure (as it would seem) of American policies. Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities are triumphalist. As they see it, the success of their “zero covid” approach — marked by severe lockdowns for entire cities, travel bans, intensive contact tracing, military enforcement – simply demonstrates the superiority of their system.
To answer this question, the Covid mortality rate is a key metric. It defines the primary desired outcome of public health policy, and the primary measure of success or failure. If the mortality figures are unreliable, or subject to manipulation, we are in trouble.
And we are in trouble. Because the mortality rates presented for China are plainly implausible. The Chinese death rates are much higher than what is published.
This is now becoming clear, as new statistical approaches start to shed light on the gap between the reported Covid death rates and the true death rates – the so-called “excess mortality” – comparing current Covid-impacted levels of mortality in careful ways with past averages and trends, to reveal the “surplus deaths” beyond the normal baseline, most of which can be attributed to undiagnosed, misdiagnosed or unreported Covid. This sort of close analysis of Covid mortality figures is being pursued by researchers at institutions including Johns Hopkins University in the U.S, Cambridge University in the UK, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and by several leading media companies, including the New York Times , Reuters , the Financial Times , and The Economist .
This effort has started to reveal the truth – and the truth is shocking.
Official Covid death statistics are vastly understated, almost everywhere .
- “[The true death toll] is two or three times higher than the number of deaths we know about.” – Amber D’Souza, Prof. of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- “Whatever number is reported is going to be a gross underestimate.” – Tim Riffe, a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany .”
The discrepancy varies from country to country.
- “The official death toll is a false figure… [and] it’s much worse than that. There’s no doubt that some countries are under-reporting COVID-19 deaths.” - David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge
The U.S. is apparently “guilty” of underreporting. According to the New York Times study, we probably undercount the prevalence of Covid deaths by about 17%. The Econom ist found a 7% discrepancy. They later increased their estimate of U.S. under-reporting to 30%.
China is another story. Its official statistics understate the Chinese Covid death rate by 17,000% (according to The Economist’s model).
In fact, based on excess mortality calculations, The Economist estimates that the true number of Covid deaths in China is not 4,636 – but something like 1.7 million.
That is, China’s cumulative death toll is likely at least double that of the United States .
In the case of the United States, the discrepancy is inadvertent. It can be explained in terms of inefficiencies and frictions in the system that cause some data loss.
In the case of China, it is clearly intentional. The Covid death figures are being grossly — one might say, crudely – manipulated by the Chinese authorities.
The Chronic Unreliability of Chinese Official Figures
In some respects, this was to be expected, based on what we know of Beijing’s tendencies to tamper with the data in other areas. E.g.,
- The unreliability of official Chinese economic data is notorious; no need here for a lengthy demonstration. A detailed study by the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank concluded that “skepticism for Chinese official economic data is widespread, and it should be.” (A subject for another column.)
- The pattern of non-cooperation, denial, obstruction, cover-up and data-destruction by Chinese authorities with respect to any inquiry involving Covid is now well-documented. [For details, see the recent book Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19, by Matt Ridley and Alina Chan, published in November 2021 by Harper Collins.]
The Missing Covid Data
More specific to the Covid mortality question are the extraordinary lacunae in Chinese data related to Covid cases.
It is becoming clear that the suppression or deletion of data related to excess deaths in China began shortly after the pandemic started. As a result, most multi-country studies of Covid prevalence and outcomes are forced to omit China from their analyses.
- November 2020: An academic study of 22 countries – “There are no data from China.”
- January 2021: An academic study covering 77 countries – “[For China] the email addresses did not work and returned an error message… ‘We are sorry to inform you that we do not have the data you requested.’ … We treat Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries. They release monthly mortality data, whereas China does not.”
- February 2021: One of the first mainstream media presentations of the excess mortality methodology by the New York Times catalogued the underreporting of nearly half a million Covid deaths in 35 countries – but did not include China.
- May 2021: The Economist – “The official death counts capture just a small share of the disease’s true impact… China’s data on excess deaths are heavily delayed or entirely unavailable.”
- July 2021: A Journal of American Medical Association study covering 67 countries still had nothing on China.
- August 2021: “Data for China was unavailable.” – The Financial Times
- September 2021: A University of Washington survey , translated into the map reproduced here — shows that even 20 months into the pandemic China was not publishing data on excess mortality (half the country reported nothing at all, and the other half reported de minimis ); China was the only country in the world at this point, other than Greenland and the former Spanish Sahara, that did not provide this da
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I doubt this is news to anyone, but the coverup is pretty staggering.
Rather than providing opinions, I can only speak of what I know to be factual, what I have seen with my own eyes and experienced in order to draw any conclusions. I agree that the Chinese government and its officials do appear to cover up what may show them to be derelict, or embarrass them, as do lesser officials like the ones who stupidly detained the whistleblowing doctor in Wuhan on the pretext that what he had said could create panic (but didn't Trump even ADMIT to delaying being serious about the virus for that very reason in his Woodward interview?). I have no doubt that the actual figures are never accurate no matter where the occurrence was in the world, including in the USA, as admitted in the article, but what if they were two or three times what has been publicized. As I said, I can only speak of what I know to be the reasons I feel that the numbers indicated in China by its government and media are probably somewhat more, and maybe even two or three times what has been indicated but not anywhere close to the unbelievably ridiculous figures dreamed up and stated in the article.
1. The controls carried out by the Chinese government were and still are draconian - zero covid philosophy and practice, massive and serious lockdowns, curtailing transportation and limiting personal movements, extraordinary and competent tracing, millions tested even when only a few cases would show up.
2. Big hospitals were quickly built and outfitted in Wuhan in ONE WEEK to treat covid patients. I watched them going up and being completed on TV.
3. The traditions and culture of the Chinese people, who are totally committed to the importance of welfare of family and community as opposed to individual rights and freedoms - and the willingness to comply with whatever is necessary to assure the health and safety of others, such as willing compliance with whatever measures the government edicts whether it be staying home, wearing masks and social distancing, carefully washing with effective disinfectants when returning from outside, In Xi'an, hundreds, if not thousands, of ordinary citizens have been volunteering to help, putting together food parcels and delivering them to people who are unable to leave their homes.
4. Because of pollution problems in China, many people already had masks and are not concerned about wearing them when the environment calls for it. 4 years ago I went to Beijing to obtain a new Canadian passport as mine was expiring, and my wife and I bought masks to wear there because of the reputation of pollution in Beijing, although we didn't need them.
5. Now what I know first hand. I live in Chongqing, a city-state populated by around 30 million, almost the same population as all of Canada. It is located in south-central China about 450 miles from Wuhan. It has been published that the numbers are less than 700 infected and only 6 deaths. That was at least a year ago and the only change is that since then there have been 4 or 5 imported cases (people coming from elsewhere). People here still wear masks inside or when near a crowd outside, but things are pretty well back to normal - schools, theatres, stores, BUT we cannot enter our bank unless out temperature is taken, my wife writes down our contact info and we wear a mask. The same for getting on the subway or just a mask to get on a bus.
6. Why do I feel that the published numbers for Chongqing are fairly accurate? My best friend here is a hospital doctor who has taken me to expat Thanksgiving dinners, and whose 7 year old daughter I helped with her English. He was a front-line doctor concerning the virus. He told me that those figures for Chongqing are fairly accurate and I KNOW he would NEVER lie to me, and another doctor I have used elsewhere in Chongqing said the same. I believe them, and I'm sure you think that they would be scared to say anything different but I know them and you don't. Another thing. Chongqing is my wife's home town and most of her extended family and many friends life here. Not only have none of them had the virus, but none of them even KNOW of anyone who had the virus. If the numbers were the ridiculous ones in the article SOMEONE would have known SOMEONE who had the virus or who had heard a story about someone who had the virus. That is my own experience, Sean, and that is what I know. It is not beyond reason for me to extrapolate the experience here to be similar to elsewhere in China, if not in Hebei Province wherein Wuhan is located. That is why I believe the numbers that are indicated are not far from the truth. The people in the article who think the number is astronomical know not of what they say.
"That is my word, and as such it is beyond contestation." (Prince Edward in the movie A Knight's Tale)
Buzz, I've lived in some of the most dangerous areas for gun violence in the country, including years in Chicago. I've never seen or been personally affected by gun violence. When you go on your rants about how everyone in America is in such danger of being victimized by gun violence would my anecdotal experience convince you gun violence doesn't occur? Or would you trust sources with more objective evidence on the subject?
I read the American news written and published by Americans every day to get my information about what is happening in America and when I see reports that there are mass shootings pretty well every day, and gun violence every day in America, and even your own POTUS admits such numbers I don't believe it's fiction. You rely on articles written in America by Americans, where it has been said lots of times that the media is biased and social media spreads misinformation and conspiracy theories, to post what you have to say.about China. Get the point?
You know. I can say the same thing. No one I know has died from it. I only know one or two people who even had it. I don't know anyone who got hospitalized from it. The thing I keep wondering is that if things are as out of control as everyone claims they are here in the US, why aren't I tripping over bodies in the streets? Why haven't I gone to funerals for people I know? The only reason I even know there's a pandemic is because I read about it in the news. It certainly hasn't shown up in my life, that's for sure.
You know what? Who cares? What is so damned important about how many people died from the virus in China? What Americans should be concerned about is what is happening where they are. If I have concerns about America it's because my son and his family live there, and I know America better than a lot of Americans. There are articles posted on this site about all the bad things about China, but as I said, WHO REALLY CARES if deaths in China were 5000 or 1.7 million except the people in China? I'm in China, and you're not.
Pretty much the entire world. If the world can't believe what China puts out (which it can't) then it hurts us all. Figure it out.
The rest of the world doesn't seem to be quite so concerned about how many people died from the virus in China other than a country that has been doing whatever it can to demonize and contain it from progressing.
825,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the USA since its inception. That is 0.25% of the population. You will not be going to trip over bodies and go to a lot of funerals.
If you want to see COVID-19 impact for real, visit your local hospital. I just spend a wonderful evening in the ER with my father-in-law (a fall). Ask the nurses about COVID-19 and you might get the same (basic) answer that I got: "We are stressed to the maximum, I wish people would get vaccinated".
COVID-19 continues to infect people and continues to impact our ability to engage in normal life. Current measures have certainly helped keep the infections below where they would be but we are not yet to a point where people can feel reasonably safe that they will not get infected. That psychologically affects everything .
For example, tell me I don't know what I'm talking about that a 2 year old Texas toddler just shot his mother one-year old brother.
Texas Toddler Shoots Mother and 1-Year-Old Sibling in Walmart Parking Lot
[deleted]
I'm in China, and you're not
[deleted] But arguments like this make it impossible.
Lucky you.
I went to funerals for people I lost in VietNam, closed caskets, does that mean the fucking caskets were
filled with sand bags?
Ditto, Mogadishu and Desert Storm. If you didn't attend a funeral or memorial service does that mean the
deaths were made up?
Ditto two people on 911. There were no bodies, one bride received a unique wedding band,
the other a wallet.
Where are there husbands?
Does that mean that people that worked on the top 3 floors escaped and are partying in fucking Belize
or do we accept that no one could have survived the building collapses?
In my business, my clients are affected every week by Covid and I hear now and then about how serious
they began to treat it when a fellow employee passed.
My brides law firm was also over reactive when one of their Partners died from Covid.
Been there, done that, open casket, paid our respects in person.
A few weeks later his wife passed also.
It's real.
Death is real, no matter how many funerals you haven't attended.
BS. I lost three relatives to COVID in 2020/2021.
The red states refused to put Covid on the death certs.
The blue state listed it as contributing, as it should have.
That is why the CDC, NIH and others are using "excess mortalities' as opposed to state information.
We lie to each other based on politics.
Why bitch about the Chinese when we are only marginally better.
I flat out don't believe China's reported numbers. That simply isn't believable. I can believe the number could be closer to 1.7 million but I don't think there's a reliable way to know what the real numbers are. Probably somewhere in the middle would be my guess. And if anyone is upset with that guess, blame the CCP. We wouldn't have to guess if they were simply open about all of it. One thing you can count on with the CCP, though. Image above all.
Gee whiz Batman, name a nation that doesn't lie about nukes, biological weapons
hazmat disposal or air & water pollution.
Gasp!
Image above all, indeed.
Not even a slight surprise considering the vile nature of that evil empire and it’s communist regime.
Matthew
While I expect that the Chinese government is lying or covering up at some level, I also wouldn’t be surprised if their numbers actually were low. They have shown that they have no qualms about fully shutting down large areas when there is an outbreak.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if their numbers actually were low
The two are certainly not mutually exclusive. A country that is currently starving the people of Xi'an to enforce a quarantine will likely have less spread than an open society where citizens can go to the store for food. I'd be surprised if the per capita numbers approached Europe or the USA.
But it's important for everyone to understand China's numbers (the few they've actually reported) are nonsensical and bear no relationship to how Covid has acted anywhere else on the planet. Deaths are almost certainly closer to the 1.7 million the Economist estimates than the 5,000 China has reported. China can lie all it wants, but everyone needs to understand what they are doing and take their propaganda for what it is and not hold it up as a model.
Me too. As with so many things in our culture there often unpleasant trade offs to the fact that we value freedom so highly. Freedom of speech means we have to tolerate offensive speech. The freedom to own weapons means people will commit murder with them. And the freedom to roam and gather means we will spread disease easier.
But the alternative is living with oppression and tyranny.
And they will. I wouldn’t trust the Chinese government to tell me how wet water is.
Starving? You should try watching CGTN sometimes to see the videos of hundreds, if not thousands of ordinary citizen volunteers working with government people, packing up and delivering thousands of food packages to people who are unable to leave their homes. The rule here is that one person can go to a market or pharmacy once every two days to purchase the supplies they need. On TV they even had an interview with a young guy living alone who said his problem was he didn't know how to cook. I guess someone needs to show him how to boil an egg or make a ham sandwich.
Actually I was surprised to see that the article you consider to be such an irrefutable truth was published by Forbes. I would have expected such an article to have been posted by the Washington Examiner extreme right-wing garbage promoting conspiracy theory digest. I'll bet that none of the contributors to that article would declare that their estimations and conclusions are absolute fact.
Would you trust me to tell you how wet water is?
Anoon Buzz... was wondering about that...they said here that not even a designated family member could go out and do grocery shopping etc..Is that correct??
If so could make life very difficult...have been complaints on Weibo about it as well...geez feeding a city of 13 million is mind boggling...
The omicron virus is off and running here...not huge numbers of deaths but infection rates have shot up into the thousands.
But most of the country is now double vacced and life is pretty well back to normal... wearing a face mask when in supermarkets, public transport etc is no big deal. To be honest feels a bit weird without it now.
The test cricket is on, thousands are in attendance, boring as all hell now...we flogged the Poms again....so they are all bawling in their cups of tea yet again...
I'm sure Chinese TV is providing it's viewers with factual reporting, relaying the actual situation on the ground. That's what Communist Controlled Media is known for after all, honest reporting.
Here's one summary, there are many, many more:
Rice for an iphone is not a fair trade.
n TV they even had an interview with a young guy living alone w
You mean Chinese TV broadcast a story downplaying the situation? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
Thank you Captain Renault. Actually the food problem is being reported. Here is what they're doing...
Xi'an makes all-out efforts to ensure food and medicine supplies for 13 mln people (link) -> ->
Number of new infections declining in Xi'an (link) -> ->
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Anoon Sean...yes that is the report I saw to...hence my question to Buzz...
Well I am off...sun sand surf are calling ...look out jaws I am about to hit the waves for the New Year..
Enjoy your evening...
I may have been wrong about the area where around 42,000 people in Xi'an live where the lockdown could be more intense because it is where the breakout was located, and it is there that I'm sure the focus is to deliver food to people who cannot leave home as indicated in the news story linked above. As I said, sometimes draconian measures are taken here to make sure people are safe.
Morning...each night on the news here we get.
The number of people in ICU. The number on ventilators. The number of new infections. And sadly the number of lost souls.
Every State and Territory does the same.
We think nothing of being up front about it...got nothing to hide as the vast majority of countries don't..
But when it comes to communist countries a total different ball game.
Oh yes and we are just in the process of deporting Djokovic he thought he was above our laws..
Novac no play..game set and match...enjoy your flight home..
Oh Lord. I can’t believe what’s going on with that dude. The Australians do what they’re supposed to do to slow this disease and he just gets to go wherever he wants and spread it? I don’t think so!
Anoon tacos .we really don't care if you are second rate movie has been and try and smuggle your mutts into the country...or a top ranking tennis player...
People seem to think the law does not apply to them. Come with the wrong paper work for visas or try and bluff and lie your way in... don't sook when you get sprung..
Djokovic whinged and whined last year when he had to do two weeks quarantine in a five star hotel...and then said he had been misinterpreted...
Don't comply, don't come here...
That’s fine. We won’t! There are other places to visit. It’s sad too because Australia used to be one of my favorite countries outside of my own and one I once really wanted to visit.
No worries ..there is not enough room for you in the Gulag anyway... don't worry xx you will get over it...
The number of infections and deaths, if any, and where they are located in China are broadcast every day on CGTN (China Global Television Network), a TV channel that I believe can be accessed everywhere, and are also published in the China Daily, a web site I'm sure everyone in the world can access. If that were not true, then how does everyone know what's happening in Xi'an?
Well that settles it then. Chinese media surely would never report anything that isn't 100% accurate. It's not like the media simply reports the facts that the government directs them to disseminate.
Well, Sean, I explained above, since I'm in China and you're not, why I thought the numbers that were reported were not that much less accurate than other nations report theirs - even your posted article made that point but you can believe whatever you want, you can live in la la land, it's no skin off my teeth and I really don't give a shit.
Their media is no different than the media was in the old Soviet Union. Izvestia and Pravda.
I didn't know you read the Chinese and Russian media, since you must in order to make a statement like that.
I wonder what Part 2 is going to say - maybe that China is cremating infected people alive and burying them in mass graves?
51Too-G11IL._SY445_.jpg (312×445) (media-amazon.com)
You must be confusing this false flag with one of Buzz's movie quizzes, lol.
I have expected that China was presenting themselves in the best possible light all along. So if this report is true, I would not be surprised.
This is funny though since it contradicts one of the silly conspiracy theories floated on this site that China extemporaneously decided to allow the virus to infect the planet in hope that it would hurt Trump's reelection and that they did not care that the planet would see them as holding the smoking gun.
I expect that when the final tallys are counted New York, Texas, Florida and California will have fudges Covid numbers for political purposes, too. Is China putting their best face on it really much different?
It is unfortunately normal in government and large enterprises for cheating to take place to avoid negative consequences.
China is claiming 5,000 deaths and the reports estimate 1.7 million.
Since it's the same thing, you believe New York and Florida are hiding millions of deaths?
Well, my grandpappy told me not to believe in anything I hear or read and only half of what I see. These days of photoshopping and digital video editing one can only believe what they see with their own eyes, and even then should not be too sure about it. I guess you didn't have a grandpappy who warned you about things like that.
I've said in my first comment above what I've seen with my own eyes and know from my personal experience. What have YOU seen with your own eyes and know from your own experience? As well, even EVERYTHING that was stated by those quoted in the article itself are only opinions.
But let us suppose that they are correct to say that even the US has probably underestimated, by as much as 30%. Now even if China has underestimated by that same figure, 30%, taking into consideration that China has about 4.5 times the population of the USA, what do you think the per-capita difference would be?
Two out of three relatives who most recently died of Covid
lived in NC and AZ where the coroners told us, in no uncertain terms
if they did not die in a COVID unit, they died of natural causes and there would be no autopsy.
The third lived in PA and went home under hospice care and the death cert says Covid, not natural causes.
Couties and state lie about the death certs.
This makes the CDC and other countries, undoubtedly, use "excess deaths" per prior baseline deaths necessary.
Politics and pride.
OMG. Why didn't the Chinese government keep this a secret?
Xi'an reaches 'turning point' in battle against COVID-19
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S eparate outbreak in Henan province has expanded to six cities since Dec 31
The COVID-19 outbreak in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, has reached a turning point, with confirmed cases continuing to decrease, said renowned Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan.
Stringent control measures adopted in Xi'an have proven effective, he told China Central Television on Thursday, noting that the confirmed cases had dropped significantly to 63 on Wednesday from a peak of 172.
All the cases reported by Shaanxi on Wednesday were in its capital, with all found among people under quarantine, the provincial health commission reported.
As of Wednesday, Xi'an has reported a total of 1,856 confirmed cases in the latest outbreak that started on Dec 9, with 72 having been cured and discharged from hospitals, said Liu Shunzhi, director of the city's health commission.
"We are launching a general offensive in the city's epidemic prevention and control work," said Kong Hong, deputy director of the city's civil affairs bureau. "Urban villages have become the key point of the work."
The city has sent teams with over 6,700 members, including officials and volunteers, to participate in front-line prevention and control work in urban villages.
Separately, in Henan province, a recent local outbreak of COVID-19 has expanded to six cities since the first two asymptomatic carriers in Luoyang were reported on Dec 31.
Henan reported 64 new locally transmitted confirmed cases on Wednesday, along with nine asymptomatic carriers, the provincial health commission reported.
Of the confirmed cases, five were found in the capital Zhengzhou, four in Luoyang, 50 in Xuchang, three in Zhoukou and one each in Xinyang and Shangqiu. Of the asymptomatic carriers, eight were in Zhengzhou and one was in Xinyang.
The coronavirus risk levels of five areas in Yuzhou, a county-level city under the administration of Xuchang, were classified as high on Thursday, the city's epidemic prevention and control headquarters said.
As of Thursday, a total of 55 confirmed cases and three asymptomatic carriers have been reported in Yuzhou, the hardest-hit region in the Henan outbreak, officials said.
Yuzhou completed the second round of testing covering around 969,000 residents by Wednesday, Xuchang Daily reported.
All residential communities and villages in Yuzhou have been strictly managed in lockdown mode, local officials said. Bus and rail services have been stopped, schools have been suspended, and public venues such as educational institutions, entertainment facilities and private clinics have also halted services. Shopping malls are only open for daily necessities and supplies.
Travel agencies must suspend cross-provincial tours and cross-provincial bookings of hotels and air tickets, according to a statement released by the Henan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism on Wednesday.
SOURCE LINK ->
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hy didn't the Chinese government keep this a secret?
Do you not understand how propaganda works? You post literal propaganda from the CCP and wonder why it paints the situation in a positive light?
Are you serious?
Here's some actual reporting from a news source that isn't actually controlled by the State Propaganda Department:
Anger at Xi’an Lockdown Spreads in China
On Wednesday, anger spread nationwide, with social-media expressions of outrage in response to a video showing a woman sitting outside a hospital, with a pool of blood at her feet. In the one-minute video, people identifying themselves as family members describe how the woman was kept waiting outside the hospital for two hours, allegedly because her most recent Covid-19 test was a couple of hours too old. By the time she was admitted, her unborn baby had died.
That is a sad story. I've also read stories about people dying in America because they couldn't get a hospital bed because they were all taken up by unvaccinated patients with the virus. Unfortunate happenings like that occur all over the world, it seems.
I guess that even in China there are people who resent being locked down. NOBODY in America resents lockdowns, or necessary compliance to things like masks and vaccinations in order to make sure the virus can be contained, eh Sean?