Protests Break Out In China Over Covid Restrictions

[Webster]

--The 82-year-old old Mr. Ouyang Jinghua, who just returned to Suining County from Changsha Xiangya Hospital, took a wheelchair to the street and held a blank paper to express his heart's desire: against dictatorship! Pursue Liberal Democracy! 2022/11/28 (CCAV, 28 Nov. 2022)

 

[Webster]

(Sky News) Analysis: Letting Omicron spread unchecked could lead to 1.5m deaths - but Chinese government faces dilemma
By Tom Cheshire, data and forensics correspondent: The Chinese Communist Party has boxed itself into a dilemma: people want an end to draconian zero-COVID restrictions. But easing them could lead to a massive wave of COVID deaths because the country is simply not prepared.

Zero-COVID started nearly three years ago, when the first lockdown was announced in Wuhan in January 2020. And for much of the pandemic, it worked - China's death rate has been very low throughout, especially compared to the UK and US.

It bought time. But China didn't use it well. Instead of using it to vaccinate and to improve its medical system, it poured vast resources into testing and into lockdowns to try to keep up with the spread of Omicron - and all the misery that entails for people living under zero-COVID.

There has never been a clear exit strategy, according to Professor Francois Balloux, director of the UCL Genetics Institute. "It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem," he told Sky News. "Once you're stuck like China was in this idea that you could suppress transmission of the virus, maybe there was not this urgency to get people vaccinated and think about the future."

As a result, China has a very low rate of elderly vaccination. The figures for two doses aren't bad. But only 68.5% of people aged over 60 – the most vulnerable - have received a booster.

Hong Kong had similarly low levels of vaccination among the elderly.

When Omicron surged out of control there, it recorded the highest death rate the world had seen.

Hong Kong's experience does not bode well for China. "Over a few days they had massive, massive mortality," Professor Balloux told Sky News. "And I would say China is in a worse situation. Hong Kong has a good health care system, probably had slightly better vaccination rates - so yes it could be pretty grim."

China doesn't have the healthcare capacity that Hong Kong had. It only has 3.6 intensive care beds per 100,000 people – ranking well below other nations.

As a result, Chinese experts have predicted that the unchecked spread of Omicron would simply overwhelm China's healthcare system and the demand would be 15.6 more than capacity. There would be nearly three million admissions to intensive care - and more than one and a half million deaths.

All of those problems might be fixed with political will. But China has trumpeted its zero-COVID policy as proof of the superiority of its system compared to other countries. The problem is that the Chinese people are looking at other countries - and thinking that life there looks a lot better.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

And yet they're still out there; imagine that?

Again desperate, starving, losing their sanity, it’s either let me out or put me out of my misery.

 

[Webster]

(Sky News) White House says it supports Chinese people's right to protest
The US has thrown its support behind people in China protesting against their government's COVID lockdowns. "People should be allowed... the right to assemble and to peacefully protest policies or laws or dictates... that they take issue with," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. "The White House supports the right of peaceful protest."

He added the US had not received any requests from China for vaccines, after experts suggested Chinese President Xi Jinping may need to import Western jabs if he decides to relax his country's coronavirus policy.

For context: Relations between the US and China have been tense in recent years. At the first US-China summit between President Xi and President Joe Biden, undiplomatic words were exchanged and it became apparent there remained a difficult relationship between the world's two largest economies.

The relationship chilled further when US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, sparking anger from China. However, a meeting between Mr Biden and President Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit appeared to reopen lines of communication between the two countries.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Countries that pushed destructive lockdowns protesting lockdowns 😂😂😂😂 Can’t wait to hear from socialist countries like Australia and Austria tell the Chinese how bad it is.

 

[MrDawn]

Restrictions & lockdowns failed. Putting out more restrictions is not going to fix the problem. All China can do is just wait for the virus to burn out.

 

[Webster]

Can’t wait to hear from socialist countries like Australia and Austria tell the Chinese how bad it is.

Newsflash: both have come out in support of the protesters.

 

[MrDawn]

Newsflash: both have come out in support of the protesters.

Well yeah. Who doesn't want the citizens to overthrow their shitty government?

I'm still waiting on the North Korean people and their army to kick Kim and his bitch sister to the curb.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Newsflash: both have come out in support of the protesters.

How fantastic after they made their own camps and forced injections on people with military force. There no better than china

 

[Webster]

How fantastic after they made their own camps and forced injections on people with military force. There no better than china

 

[MrDawn]

Wanna go to China and protest with me? Not only can we get matching scars. We can be bunk mates while we're waiting to get executed! 😂

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Wanna go to China and protest with me? Not only can we get matching scars. We can be bunk mates while we're waiting to get executed! 😂

As delightful as that sounds, I’ll have to take a hard pass and control myself to not buy tickets.

 

[Webster]

Wanna go to China and protest with me? Not only can we get matching scars. We can be bunk mates while we're waiting to get executed! 😂

No thanks; you'd have better odds getting through Singapore customs with drugs strapped to you first.

 

[fuzzems]

Chinese style lockdowns are the liberals wet dream for America

 

[Webster]

Chinese style lockdowns are the liberals wet dream for America

Oh, so as long as you have "your freedoms!" then "screw the rest of us"?

That's nice.

 

[fuzzems]

Chinese style lockdowns are the liberals wet dream for America

Oh, so as long as you have "your freedoms!" then "screw the rest of us"?

That's nice.

Huh? Not sure what your point is?

 

[MrDawn]

As delightful as that sounds, I’ll have to take a hard pass and control myself to not buy tickets.

lol have you heard about their black site jails? It's where they send people, execute them, and harvest their organs. They're as bad as North Korea.

 

[Nebulous]

Chinese style lockdowns are the liberals wet dream for America

What makes you say that?

 

[fuzzems]

Because they desire to CONTROL the population, have them under their thumb and confiscate the wealth

 

[Nebulous]

Because they desire to CONTROL the population, have them under their thumb and confiscate the wealth

...or stop the spread of a virus that we didn't know much about?