I can’t understand it. Look at what Covid is doing right now. It’s fucking awful. Why couldn’t they just stay with Zero-COVID till everyone got vaccinated? Why haven’t they vaccinated everyone by now? It’s so frustrating. Who the fuck cares if someone assholes protested with blank paper? Just…why?

  • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Vaccine hesitancy is somewhat high from what I understand, talking to colleagues and relatives in mainland China, and colleagues in the US with family in China.

    I'm sure they'll make a better effort at contact-tracing and reduction of risk through less restrictive measures than most countries. In general Zero COVID is not sustainable, it could be if everyone were on the same page but the entirety of the rest of the world has more or less given up. At the end of the day it is a market economy, just with slightly different features than most market economies.

    Vaccines are pretty good at reducing severe symptoms, but they're not great for long term immunity and counterproductive in the long term - unless they invest heavily in booster shots, but the population is already skeptical of the existing series...

    We already basically know that immune imprinting risks apply to SARS-COV-2 infections (expected, it's a coronavirus) thanks to a well done Italian study where subjects with memory B cells for a couple of endemic seasonal alphacoronaviruses (NL63 and 229E) had worse COVID-19 outcomes controlling for other factors - so it's reasonably likely that a vaccine series which creates spike protein subunit antibodies for previous versions of SARS-COV-2 will probably hamper immune responses to future mutated versions.

    • happybadger [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Where does the hesitancy come from there? Is it still reactionary conspiracy theories or is there a different narrative?

      • Spike [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It's mostly elderly who lived through the cultural revolution. They had their lives messed with for what appears to be, in their minds, no reason so they still doubt the government. These people are also not health literate and alternative medicine is still popular. There's also a long history of faulty products and lack of oversight when it comes to medicine in China. The quality of medicine in China has improved over the last 20 years, but if you're 70 it might not be enough to overcome any skepticism

        • jkfjfhkdfgdfb [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          It’s mostly elderly who lived through the cultural revolution. They had their lives messed with for what appears to be, in their minds, no reason so they still doubt the government.

          cringe