It is difficult to know exactly what China’s experience with COVID-19 has been. Such is the inevitable consequence of the country’s heavily controlled media and obviously fudged disease statistics.
Still, one assessment seems certain: China is still terrified by the virus. Consider the Zero COVID response in Jilin in the northeastern part of the country (emphasis mine) :
In Jilin, more than 95 per cent of the patients had only either mild symptoms or none at all, according to NHC official Jiao Yahui.
Nevertheless, as of Tuesday morning, more than 8,200 people were in hospital for Covid-19 in Jilin province, Jiao said.
“Moderate, severe and critical cases and patients at risk, such as the elderly and those with underlying illnesses, will be admitted to designated hospitals that are better equipped,” she said.
“Others, asymptomatic cases and those with mild cases, would be admitted to other designated and prefabricated hospitals.”
Why are “asymptomatic cases, and those with mild cases” being hospitalized at all? If they're asymptomatic, by definition they are not sick. Why waste finite hospital beds on those who have no need them
By any measure, China's extremism in the face of COVID-19 is unwarranted. Yet Zero COVID remains Beijing’s official pandemic policy, even though it has failed and is failing to halt the disease.
Mass formation, sadism and narcissism explain it. The Chinese rulers have personality disorders that stop them from ever admiting that they are wrong about anything, and instead they attack the ones pointing out that they are wrong.
This happens in every organization as the worst narcissists climb to power while also getting more sick in the process, but CCP's absolute power makes it extra vulnerable to this process.
On the other hand: Someone might be spraying spike proteins in the air and that is what causes the coldlike symptoms.
The major problem I see with that thesis is ignores the macroeconomic impacts on China. Even the most narcissistic ruler wants the nation to prosper, for reasons of survival if no other (prosperous peasants are less likely to rebel).
And focusing on economic prosperity would not require even a private admission of error. Xi Jinping could simply ignore the spiking case numbers.
Perversely, if your explanation IS accurate, the notion of China as an up and coming power is immediately debunked. If the CCP is that ensnared in a Xi Jinping cult of personality, their economy is going to crash... and hard.
I should have been more clear: I'm not talking about grandiose narcissist leaders that want to do great things and slowly can realize that their actions are destructive, and then they will listen to any advice.
I'm talking about vulnerable narcissists that have spent their entire life sucking up to the now dead leader above them in the CCP, so they are so perfectly trained to follow the narrative that they will, together with most of their underlings (forming a mass formation), do just like an over-trained dog and run after the ball through a window on the 42nd floor - Because that is the meaning of that dog's life.
Humans might have other mental capabilities than dogs, but all (possibly) domesticated mammals like humans, wolves, horses (not zebras!), elephants, lions (not tigers) have this trait of blindly follow the narrative, but when the competent leader dies and the flock (empire) just get to big, it will go insane.
That's why zebra herds don't have a leader, but their flocks do. Otherwise zebra herds would be extinct like all human empires are.
I do think the notion of China as an up and coming power is going to be debunked for the next 50 years, just like Japan. The Chinese economy is going to crash-expand until the CCP breaks - My bet is that all the current billion predictions on how CCP will end or not end are wrong. Empires always fall due to the unexpected. And who expected the Nazis to win WW-II and take over both the remaining super powers' military industrial complexes?
Yeah. What does China know about Covid, that we do not know, that makes it do things that appear totally crazy? It makes no sense... unless China knows something terrible about Covid.
Perhaps... That Covid is like airborne HIV? I discussed that in one of my articles.
The implications are terrifying and you are asking the right question.
As a survivor of "mild Covid", I am quite concerned.
The irony is that, regardless of the "why", their "Zero COVID" strategy is a failure--Hong Kong pretty much proves that.
And given that their vaccines (non-mRNA) apparently carry some side effects as well, if they do know something the rest of the world does not the secrecy route is not working out for them at all.
Mass formation, sadism and narcissism explain it. The Chinese rulers have personality disorders that stop them from ever admiting that they are wrong about anything, and instead they attack the ones pointing out that they are wrong.
This happens in every organization as the worst narcissists climb to power while also getting more sick in the process, but CCP's absolute power makes it extra vulnerable to this process.
On the other hand: Someone might be spraying spike proteins in the air and that is what causes the coldlike symptoms.
The major problem I see with that thesis is ignores the macroeconomic impacts on China. Even the most narcissistic ruler wants the nation to prosper, for reasons of survival if no other (prosperous peasants are less likely to rebel).
And focusing on economic prosperity would not require even a private admission of error. Xi Jinping could simply ignore the spiking case numbers.
Perversely, if your explanation IS accurate, the notion of China as an up and coming power is immediately debunked. If the CCP is that ensnared in a Xi Jinping cult of personality, their economy is going to crash... and hard.
I should have been more clear: I'm not talking about grandiose narcissist leaders that want to do great things and slowly can realize that their actions are destructive, and then they will listen to any advice.
I'm talking about vulnerable narcissists that have spent their entire life sucking up to the now dead leader above them in the CCP, so they are so perfectly trained to follow the narrative that they will, together with most of their underlings (forming a mass formation), do just like an over-trained dog and run after the ball through a window on the 42nd floor - Because that is the meaning of that dog's life.
Humans might have other mental capabilities than dogs, but all (possibly) domesticated mammals like humans, wolves, horses (not zebras!), elephants, lions (not tigers) have this trait of blindly follow the narrative, but when the competent leader dies and the flock (empire) just get to big, it will go insane.
That's why zebra herds don't have a leader, but their flocks do. Otherwise zebra herds would be extinct like all human empires are.
I do think the notion of China as an up and coming power is going to be debunked for the next 50 years, just like Japan. The Chinese economy is going to crash-expand until the CCP breaks - My bet is that all the current billion predictions on how CCP will end or not end are wrong. Empires always fall due to the unexpected. And who expected the Nazis to win WW-II and take over both the remaining super powers' military industrial complexes?
Ah. An interesting application of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
Which would make for an interesting parallel to the phenomenon of Lysenkoism/Faucism in the sciences.
Yeah. What does China know about Covid, that we do not know, that makes it do things that appear totally crazy? It makes no sense... unless China knows something terrible about Covid.
Perhaps... That Covid is like airborne HIV? I discussed that in one of my articles.
The implications are terrifying and you are asking the right question.
As a survivor of "mild Covid", I am quite concerned.
The irony is that, regardless of the "why", their "Zero COVID" strategy is a failure--Hong Kong pretty much proves that.
And given that their vaccines (non-mRNA) apparently carry some side effects as well, if they do know something the rest of the world does not the secrecy route is not working out for them at all.