Fever meds in short supply, hospitals overwhelmed, blood shortage, death tolls soaring among the elderly, morgues overflown with body bags --Why China has a man-made crisis after "sudden reopening"
Fever meds in short supply, hospitals overwhelmed, blood shortage, death tolls soaring among the elderly, morgues overflown with body bags --Why China has a man-made crisis after "sudden reopening"
Dec 22, 2022·edited Dec 23, 2022Liked by Wang Xiangwei
The current crisis is at least in part a result of China's early success in bringing the epidemic under control.
In the face of a sudden attack by an unknown virus, it took the leadership great courage to lock down Wuhan and other places to track down, isolate and treat the infected and those who might be infected. The strategy of mass testing, contact tracing and zealous quarantining did work and kept China the safest place on earth for about two years in regard to Covid.
Then path dependency set in. The leadership got complacent and even cocky. They assumed that what worked initially would always work, making a firefighting strategy in response to an emergency of the moment the default long-term strategy for a protracted pandemic that just would not go away.
But their winning strategy eventually backfired dramatically. Regular people got fed up with the endless and draconian restrictions and began to clammer for opening-up. The economy got dealt with one devastating blow after another. Human and financial resources were being fast depleted for a strategy that ultimately did not work. In the process, the preparation for opening-up was almost totally neglected.
When the country finally opened up in the face of what the leadership must have felt were a sudden outpouring of popular discontent, both the leadership and the regular people were caught off-guard, much in the same way as when the virus was first detected.
People say that those who laugh the last laugh the best. China will not be able to have the last laugh in this pandemic. As the first to cry over the Covid, China is actually turning out to be the last to cry. A lot of lessons to be learned.
While I agree China should've spent more time to stock up on fever meds, those are ultimately just symptomatic treatment and doesn't affect the underlying disease. As for bolstering the healthcare infrastructure, local governments were already financially strained from trying to control COVID; had they instead devoted those resources to building more ICU facilities or training ICU medical staff, they would've lost control over COVID even earlier. Difficult to do both at the same time.
Contrasting this approach with India's. India began the vaccination program for the elderly and the healthcare workers and at the last it was 18+ population. This strategy worked brilliantly as the most vulnerable and comorbid were attended to first. Subsequently the country began to open gradually. Starting from the railways, factories, then public places and so on. Similarly the restrictions even on the public in terms of their movement was reduced gradually. Such as workers coming on alternate days, encouraging work from home wherever applicable. This proved extremely effective as the public by then had become aware of the situation and practiced utmost sincerely the guidelines. Simultaneously the government aggressively pursued the vaccination program so that vaccines are taken by the public. Vaccination strategy was perhaps the best because only two Indian vaccines were allowed and the govt. did not cow down under global pressure to introduce vaccines which are not safe enough. Despite pressure from the lobbies, and internal moles and agents, the Govt. did not back down and pursued relentless vaccination with now upto 220 crore (2.2 billion) doses delivered. Govt. also executed the mass nutrition program with basic necessities such as Wheat, Oil, Rice, Sugar delivered free of cost to families through its public food program.
While I certainly hope and pray that the common people do not suffer in China but the leadership under PM Modi here has proved to be a boon in fighting off this pandemic.
Dec 23, 2022·edited Dec 23, 2022Liked by Wang Xiangwei
The evident lack of preparation strongly points hints that the decision to 躺平 (lay flat) was made suddenly. Besides the protests which were likely merely the trigger (as you point out), we can guess that both the financial and epidemiological pressure were overwhelming:
(1) Almost all of the provincial governments were broke and many were apparently months behind on payments for quarantine hotels, PCR tests and the like.
(2) The numbers of infected we saw within the first week of opening hint that even before Sun Chunlan's symposium on November 30th, the health authorities realized that they had already lost control, and that the holes in the dikes holding the sea back were no longer repairable.
When dikes collapse, they tend to do so completely and suddenly. That is what we have seen.
Since then not only is there a mass shortage of fever suppressants, but as we have written, to our knowledge the various government health commissions did not provide a single recommendation for actual fact-acting medicine intended to treat the condition, i.e. to lessen its intensity and shorten its duration. In fact, there is not a single prescription medication on their lists, not even aspirin. To put it bluntly, they made zero use of the experience gathered outside China over the past few years. Unfortunate to say the least.
I volunteered at a US hospital during the early pandemic winter 2020, and honestly China was going to handle this worse then the US no matter what. The chinese med system is half as good as the US and we legitimately and still are struggling. Stockpiling fever meds, building "grass root facilities" is like an extra bandaid on a gunshot wound. The true limitation is that China can only grow med school class size by 7% a year.
The current crisis is at least in part a result of China's early success in bringing the epidemic under control.
In the face of a sudden attack by an unknown virus, it took the leadership great courage to lock down Wuhan and other places to track down, isolate and treat the infected and those who might be infected. The strategy of mass testing, contact tracing and zealous quarantining did work and kept China the safest place on earth for about two years in regard to Covid.
Then path dependency set in. The leadership got complacent and even cocky. They assumed that what worked initially would always work, making a firefighting strategy in response to an emergency of the moment the default long-term strategy for a protracted pandemic that just would not go away.
But their winning strategy eventually backfired dramatically. Regular people got fed up with the endless and draconian restrictions and began to clammer for opening-up. The economy got dealt with one devastating blow after another. Human and financial resources were being fast depleted for a strategy that ultimately did not work. In the process, the preparation for opening-up was almost totally neglected.
When the country finally opened up in the face of what the leadership must have felt were a sudden outpouring of popular discontent, both the leadership and the regular people were caught off-guard, much in the same way as when the virus was first detected.
People say that those who laugh the last laugh the best. China will not be able to have the last laugh in this pandemic. As the first to cry over the Covid, China is actually turning out to be the last to cry. A lot of lessons to be learned.
While I agree China should've spent more time to stock up on fever meds, those are ultimately just symptomatic treatment and doesn't affect the underlying disease. As for bolstering the healthcare infrastructure, local governments were already financially strained from trying to control COVID; had they instead devoted those resources to building more ICU facilities or training ICU medical staff, they would've lost control over COVID even earlier. Difficult to do both at the same time.
Contrasting this approach with India's. India began the vaccination program for the elderly and the healthcare workers and at the last it was 18+ population. This strategy worked brilliantly as the most vulnerable and comorbid were attended to first. Subsequently the country began to open gradually. Starting from the railways, factories, then public places and so on. Similarly the restrictions even on the public in terms of their movement was reduced gradually. Such as workers coming on alternate days, encouraging work from home wherever applicable. This proved extremely effective as the public by then had become aware of the situation and practiced utmost sincerely the guidelines. Simultaneously the government aggressively pursued the vaccination program so that vaccines are taken by the public. Vaccination strategy was perhaps the best because only two Indian vaccines were allowed and the govt. did not cow down under global pressure to introduce vaccines which are not safe enough. Despite pressure from the lobbies, and internal moles and agents, the Govt. did not back down and pursued relentless vaccination with now upto 220 crore (2.2 billion) doses delivered. Govt. also executed the mass nutrition program with basic necessities such as Wheat, Oil, Rice, Sugar delivered free of cost to families through its public food program.
While I certainly hope and pray that the common people do not suffer in China but the leadership under PM Modi here has proved to be a boon in fighting off this pandemic.
The evident lack of preparation strongly points hints that the decision to 躺平 (lay flat) was made suddenly. Besides the protests which were likely merely the trigger (as you point out), we can guess that both the financial and epidemiological pressure were overwhelming:
(1) Almost all of the provincial governments were broke and many were apparently months behind on payments for quarantine hotels, PCR tests and the like.
(2) The numbers of infected we saw within the first week of opening hint that even before Sun Chunlan's symposium on November 30th, the health authorities realized that they had already lost control, and that the holes in the dikes holding the sea back were no longer repairable.
When dikes collapse, they tend to do so completely and suddenly. That is what we have seen.
Since then not only is there a mass shortage of fever suppressants, but as we have written, to our knowledge the various government health commissions did not provide a single recommendation for actual fact-acting medicine intended to treat the condition, i.e. to lessen its intensity and shorten its duration. In fact, there is not a single prescription medication on their lists, not even aspirin. To put it bluntly, they made zero use of the experience gathered outside China over the past few years. Unfortunate to say the least.
Thanks Xiangwei. A piece very well put
I volunteered at a US hospital during the early pandemic winter 2020, and honestly China was going to handle this worse then the US no matter what. The chinese med system is half as good as the US and we legitimately and still are struggling. Stockpiling fever meds, building "grass root facilities" is like an extra bandaid on a gunshot wound. The true limitation is that China can only grow med school class size by 7% a year.
Shocking and heartbreaking.