Last time we talked about COVID in China, it was on Jan 28th, in newsletter 34. Then Chinese New Year and Olympics and the chained woman took over the news.
When the dynamic zero policy of mainland crept into Hong Kong, long queue of people waiting for PCR tests showed up on the streets, my initial reaction was: it’s appalling.
Then I got schooled by a friend from Hong Kong. Hong Kong people don’t want to go the western way and they prefer the mainland way. All the problems of PCR tests are solved already.
I have my reservations:
1, Two years ago, Hong Kong medical community, civil society and free press worked together and fended off the pandemic, despite the inaction from the government. They actually did much better than the West. Part of the reason is that people remember SARS from 2002. Another reason is that Hong Kong society was very good at taking care of itself.
2, During the last two years, too many things have changed in Hong Kong. Political opposition have all been jailed. Press has been destroyed. A draconian National Security Law has been passed. To me, Hong Kong is already mainland, politically.
3, And now with the vaccines and medicines available, when the rest of the world is preparing to re-open up, Hong Kong decided to join mainland. To me, the move is more politically calculated than based on practicality.
Later, when more information poured in, it seems that many old people in Hong Kong did not get vaccines, and when they did get vaccines, majority of them chose the Chinese one. Below is a screenshot from twitter showing the vaccines details by age group, from the HK government website:
For the age groups 60-69, 70-79 and 80+, you can see that for the majority of people who get vaccinated, they choose Coronavac(Sinovac), represented by orange color. Why? Because older people tend to lean towards Mainland.
Today, when I went to check the latest graph on the government website, the color coded details of vaccine types have disappeared. What does it say about Hong Kong government?
Hong Kong government did not vaccinate enough old people, and they encouraged strongly the usage of the Chinese vaccine ,which is less effective than others. Now it seems that perhaps Hong Kong has no option but to adopt the mainland dynamic zero policies?
You have to ask why Hong Kong people did not get fully vaccinated with the BioNtech vaccine they imported? You can blame western countries for the mistakes made in the beginning of the pandemic, but once vaccine is out, they more or less were doing the right thing: vaccinate as fast as they could. But the west is far, let’s look at Singapore as another example: its size is on par of Hong Kong, and they fully vaccinated their population. They are NOT doing a dynamic zero policy, and they are doing quite well.
Even now, there are people who challenge the theory that Hong Kong has to either go with dynamic zero, or “let ‘er rip”. I am no expert. If you want expert opinion, there are plenty in the western media. For example:
New York Times, Hong Kong Can’t Live With the Virus. It Can’t Stop It, Either.
Guardian: “‘No light at the end’: How Hong Kong’s COVID response went so wrong”.
At first, the chief executive of Hong Kong was promising a dynamic zero policy to Hong Kong people, theb, our dear supreme leader strongly instructed Carrie Lam to go zero, according to the news. Here I am quoting from VOA Chinese version:
The outbreak of COVID in Hong Kong has worsened rapidly. On February 16, the number of confirmed cases in a single day exceeded 4,200. Chinese President Xi Jinping gave an important instruction at this critical moment, stressing that the SAR government should make controlling the epidemic as the overriding task at hand. The Central Government fully supports the SAR Government’s efforts to prevent and combat the epidemic. While Hong Kong politicians almost unanimously echoed Xi’s instructions, the medical profession remained silent. Some public opinion is concerned that if the Hong Kong government introduces the mainland China-led model to combat the epidemic, it will seriously undermine the confidence of health care workers and the public.
Notice, this time the medical community is silent. They were very vocal during the first wave.
That was Feb 16, 4200 new cases. Today, 18th, stats on the 17th is out, 3,629 new cases were reported.
If you remember our newsletter 18, we reported the daily new cases in Xi’an before and after the Martial Laws and full lockdown, the peak was 175 new cases a day. So, how does Hong Kong achieve dynamic zero? A full lockdown is not feasible. Hong Kong does not have the same level of tight control of its people like Mainland China.
Already, mainland is sending their experts to Hong Kong to help.
And the Chinese medicine, Lianhua Qingwen capsules, which was banned by Sweden (see newsletter 15) is already sold out in Hong Kong.
Maybe this is the solution?
Meanwhile, if you visit western media website, it is filled with pictures of patients in hospital beds out in the open, in the coldest time of the year. This must be hostile propaganda, I thought. Everything will be fine in no time.
Then, Southern China Morning Post, controlled by Jack Ma, reported:
The Hospital Authority said 3,774 people sought treatment at accident and emergency departments earlier on Thursday, and 691 – or 18.3 per cent – were admitted.
Some people say those not admitted might be sent to mainland for hospitalization.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong law makers are lining up to thank our dear supreme leader:
(rough translation): Announcement by all the members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong: Thanks to the secretary general Xi Jinping for his important guidance [… omitting the ass kissing part, just look at the size of it]
I also believe that under our dear supreme leader, Hong Kong will achieve dynamic zeros, one day, for sure.
Whatever happens to Hong Kong will be a propaganda gold mine to mainland government. If Hong Kong pulled through with less death, it is the central government that helped. If Hong Kong incurred massive deaths, it only fortified the case for harsh lockdown in mainland China.
According to BBC reporter Stephen McDonell:
In #China’s #Jiangsu Province an #OmicronVariant outbreak of #Covid has spread from #Suzhou to the other cities #Wuxi and #Nantong. Elsewhere there are #Covid cases in #Liaoning, #InnerMongolia and #Guangdong.
Does Jiangsu province ring a bell to you? Yes, it is the third richest province in China, next to Shanghai, where the chained woman was found.
There is also an update (yes, things are happening so fast) on her case: The provincial government is stepping in to take over the investigation.
Turned out the first two announcements were issued by Fengxian (county) government, the third and fourth was by the Xuzhou (city) government. And the case is moving up the chain of command.
The public outpouring of anger is surprising, even to government propaganda veteran, such as Hu Xijin. In the following article, he lamented that they were at a loss as to how this crisis is not going away:
(partial translation)
Every time, when some public opinions were expressed, government officials complained that destructive forces were misleading people, the media was making things big. This is becoming a formula (that local government used to get away). The problem is: how come these forces can mislead people so easily? This time, the media is clean and did not make things big, then how did this go viral? We can not kill the social media in the time of internet, can we?
Indeed, there has been no traditional media coverage on this case. It is all just …. people, on their own, reacting. How surprising! They concluded for themselves that what happened to the chained woman is not only horrifying, but also horribly common. And they are really angry.
Will the provincial government give people the truth? Yes, they will deliver what they want you to believe. And maybe they will find the forces that Mr. Hu was talking about and eradicate them. And maybe, CCP will kill social media in China, who knows!
Ohhhh, I forgot, yes, COVID is still spreading in come places in China, but dynamic zero policy rules.