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?

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Mao’s China had massive vaccination campaigns in a more rural, less educated, and more superstitious China than today’s and they were very effective, but the party has sacrificed the kind of community and radical patriotism that produced that in favor of the development of productive forces and all of the alienation that brings.

    I think you're kidding yourself if you believe 1970s era China would have done better than modern China. Barefoot doctors aren't enough to stop Covid from spreading.

    • Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm not sure how Mao's China would have done against this particular disease, but it should be obvious that the technical skill or equipment of medical providers had very little to do with how dangerous this disease has been. Countries with very good doctors and hospitals like the US and the UK were ravaged by it not because of their doctors, but because the masses could not be mobilized (or demobilized in a sense) to prevent the spread of disease and were in fact very easily compelled to fall in line with the bourgeoisie who did not care about the disease either through stupidity and misinformation or selfishness and greed. China in the 60s would have undoubtedly struggled to produce vaccines, masks, and to treat the worst cases, but reaching the masses and leading them in correct action in regards to other diseases is exactly what they did and there's little reason to suspect they couldn't have done it for this one either.

      • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Countries with very good doctors and hospitals like the US and the UK were ravaged by it not because of their doctors, but because the masses could not be mobilized (or demobilized in a sense) to prevent the spread of disease and were in fact very easily compelled to fall in line with the bourgeoisie who did not care about the disease either through stupidity and misinformation or selfishness and greed.

        You're confusing necessary conditions with sufficient conditions. It's necessary to have healthcare facilities on par with your standard Western countries in order to effectively combat Covid, but as we can clearly see, it's obviously not a sufficient one.

        but reaching the masses and leading them in correct action in regards to other diseases is exactly what they did and there’s little reason to suspect they couldn’t have done it for this one either.

        We're talking about a time period where the average person didn't even have a b/w TV. How would "reaching the masses" even look like besides people reading about it in a newspaper? Communist cadre aren't a hivemind that instantaneously pick up whatever command Mao had in Beijing. The main difference between Covid and smallpox or TB is that Covid is an active infectious disease, so the time lag is actually critical. Compare that to today with contact tracing and being able to quickly propagate news. I think you vastly underestimate how behind Mao's China was techwise and why Deng had to do what he did.