https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/chinas-zero-covid-policy-will-not-work-with-omicron-epidemiologist.html
China is "uniquely at risk" to omicron, Osterholm said, for a combination of reasons: Early studies suggest its Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines are "not very effective" against the variant, and at the same time China's success at preventing the spread of Covid so far means it has a very large population that remains vulnerable.
There's a show called The Great that's a fictionalized history of Catherine the Great where one of the Serfs gets pox and the courts response is to just throw all the serfs in a bonfire and burn them because "we can't have it getting into the palace"