I could of course be incorrect, but I actually don't expect too much disruption.
Recently circulating strains are pretty mild, especially for younger working age people. The potential for long-COVID effects to compound at the population level are the main risk which won't cause any sudden and unexpected disruptions in the near term.
At the moment Western media are frothing over what was absolutely a planned rollback of restrictions, possibly accelerated slightly by some small protests. My colleagues and my partner's family in China haven't mentioned any recent changes other than starting a couple weeks ago needing to test less often (Fujian & Shanghai for what it's worth).
I haven't seen any actual studies suggesting strains are getting less lethal or less damaging. Just a lot of talking heads in media. In the absence of actual data I'd guess that it's about half actual lies and half all the most vulnerable people died years ago.
Like if you plotted the lethality of bullets over time it would go down noticeably after you'd shot everyone who wasn't hiding in cover.
The western media is gleeful about China suffering but, as with everything related to the pandemic, is downplaying how bad it could get.
Sure...
You are literally not properly reading what they or I are saying. Ranting about china breeding variants isn't incompatible with downplaying the upcoming economic shocks as Chinese manufacturing and shipping gets wrecked.
They're not talking about the shit that is going to make :grillman: lose his mind i.e. another toilet paper shortage, or shortages of actually vital goods.
as Chinese manufacturing and shipping gets wrecked.
What are the signs of that happening? If anything there's going to be more economic activity now. Almost all the young people are vaccinated, not like people are dropping out of work from severe covid.
It's almost like a future occurrence or something as everybody in the country inevitably gets infected
Let me make an argument that doesn't matter when we're 2 comments into a chain resulting from you literally just not understanding what OP was saying to begin with
There was some (non-chud) news sources a few days ago that chinese citizens were having trouble getting stuff like NSAIDs and were lining up at the factory to find some. Not sure how this could play out here though.
Other than that, it looks like some things like certain (not-insulin) diabetes preventative injections may be going into short supply. I recently heard that a family friend was trying to get a few months in advance paying cash out of pocket because the insurance company wasn't letting them get the supply they needed.
Also there's the adderall thing. Apparently people are being told by their pharmacies that they may never expect to see this stuff come into stock again.
The main thing I would worry about getting run out in the case of a supply shock is pharmaceuticals. If you or your loved ones have anything you need to take regularly, you might see about getting your prescription filled as far in advance as possible in as large of a supply as they'll give you - other than that have enough OTC medications to self-medicate minor stuff as much as you can.
Most of the other things that are vulnerable if a major port closes are things you can live without, or that the US makes the overwhelming majority of locally.
