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.
The dirty secret in the US is that periodic flare-ups also shut down businesses and public services (education, most notably). People laid out on their asses, service delays dragging on the economy, and capital running short-staffed just isn't described as a "lockdown" in modern western parlance anymore.
Nevermind the long-term impact of Long COVID and a pile of corpses stacked a million bodies high.
It's all just :cope: at this point. Americans will say anything to explain away the results of shit policy.