"zero covid" is still the right strategy for a disease for which the population is unvaccinated; even if it doesn't achieve full elimination.
So did countries that didn't.
Compare Australia vs UK.
They avoided COVID delta for months (6+) despite locking all incoming arrivals in shared air hotel quarantine systems and workers coming into the quarantine zone day in and day out (i.e. not taking quarantine seriously quarantine). Some Australian states who had better border control policies were able to keep COVID out indefinitely (e.g. WA, QLD, TAS, SA, etc).
Knowing some people who live in WA, despite overseas travel restrictions, life is pretty much pre-2019. Clubs are open, schools are running, no masks, nothing. They are thankful for zero COVID policies - the biggest one being border control and for some areas dedicated, but well resourced, quarantine facilities (NT). Only recently did NT get cases, and it didn't come internationally, but from the NSW outbreak. It's a concern since the indigenous population there typically have less health facilities.
Of course it is much easier to do this in Australia than the US or UK for a variety of reasons. Europe definitely can't do this IMO - land borders aren't strong enough.
Can you define this term for me please? What exactly is a preventable death during a global pandemic and where is the data that measures it?
- pseudo-science is not gonna help.
- we could be in a better place if we had the capacity to act as a group.
Where I live this was managed perhaps better than other places, not as well as it could have been.
I generally agree that we should depart from a covid zero strategy, but not because the vaccines aren’t effective; rather, because too many people are making decisions based on FUD and there doesn’t seem like much that can be done about that in the sort of timeframe during which a “covid-zero” strategy might work.
Treshold of herd immunity depends on transmitability. For delta variant, if r=6 estimates are true, you would need 100% of population vaccinated in last 5 months (because after that infection immunity drops too low).
https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...
The goal in western countries is to get to the "endemic phase" of the infection - i.e. "live with the virus". That's all well and good, unfortunately this requires the disease to become significantly less deadly than it still is. We're not there yet.
> Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged an end to the elimination strategy seven weeks into a lockdown that has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta variant, announcing that restrictions would be gradually lifted in Auckland, the country’s largest city.
> “We’re transitioning from our current strategy into a new way of doing things,” Ms. Ardern told reporters. “With Delta, the return to zero is incredibly difficult, and our restrictions alone are not enough to achieve that quickly. In fact, for this outbreak, it’s clear that long periods of heavy restrictions has [sic] not got us to zero cases.”
> “What we have called a long tail, feels more like a tentacle that has been incredibly hard to shake.”
If NZ would have kept their borders locked this would have not happened. They will come to regret that decision.
ie. South Australia has the ocean borders of Australia and the psychological borders of unpopularity. The combination of which has proven incredibly effective.
That said, the US has a lot of people crossing its land borders—even if it completely hardened its ports, outlawed border crossings, and was much better at reducing internal contagion, it would still have to deal with thousands of people who cross illegally and who aren’t going to quarantine for two weeks or abide by any kind of contact tracing programs.
Are we really trusting China's data? They still have less than 100k cases reported. That makes zero sense from what we've seen from other countries. How would they have tracked down every case after it ran rampant for 3 months in a major city?
But I can say this: (a) there really is a pervasive nationwide effort to track and trace, which affects everybody and everything, and (b) the minor outbreaks that do happen get shard pretty faithfully on social media -- even if there is also censorship, it seems it's not as fast as the grassroots spread of news.
For people outside of China, the figures would seem really suspect and unbelievable but if you are/was in China then you will understand why infection rates have been low vs countries outside of East/SE Asia.
Reason one: face masks.
People in Shanghai were wearing them from mid Jan 2020 indoors and outdoors. From about mid May 2020 onwards, less people were wearing them outdoors. When I left in Oct 2020, face masks were still required in public venues like museums and on public transport. From seeing photos that my Chinese friends have sent to me recently, face masks are still required on public transport and everybody wears one. Yes, everybody.
This is in contrast to the London Underground (London is my hometown) where people don't bother even though it is required (as a Condition of Carriage). Now you know why the UK has stupidly high infection rates.. people here don't care about their fellow citizens.
Reason two: health QR code thing on Alipay/WeChat (tracking movements).
If you wanted to get into certain places like museums, you had to show a green QR code which meant you was not in a high risk area of the country with outbreaks. So if you was in say another city like Guangzhou that had an outbreak within the last 14 days, then your QR code would be red and they would refuse you entry. In essence, you were tracked by Alipay or WeChat. I have not asked my Chinese friends if health QR codes are still required.
Reason three: limiting movement of people via lockdowns, etc.
I think China got lucky in that the outbreak during Jan 2020 coincided with Chinese New Year so the majority of migrant workers in cities (外地人) were in their hometowns or villages. In other words, cities like Shanghai were virtually empty. People outside of Shanghai returned around the second half of Feb 2020 (after the Chinese New Year holiday break was extended). This extension limited movement of people at the time and thus the potential spread of the virus.
I was living on campus at a Shanghai university. They locked down the campus from the beginning of March 2020 where you could not leave the campus unless it was an emergency. Only university staff could enter and leave freely. TBH, this was too draconian because it was 'safe' from May 2020 but entry to campus was still restricted! As a result, I found ways to sneak out lol. All universities in Shanghai had lockdowns in case you was wondering.
They also locked down residential estates (小区) during the first few months of 2020. Only residents could enter and all deliveries (parcels, food etc) were left at the front gate for you to collect. They were manned with security guards to check if you lived there.
There have been movement restrictions for people in certain industries, e.g. education. Earlier on this year one of my Chinese friends that works at an international school told me she was not allowed to leave Shanghai when taking annual leave.
Reason four: keeping tabs on who buys medicines for flu or colds
You heard that right. One of the most bizarre things ever. When I wanted to buy medicine for the common cold in a pharmacy, they asked me the reasons for purchase and I had to show my original passport and they entered my details into the computer. This was not required when I bought cold/flu medicines during Autumn (fall) 2019. This red tape was not limited to foreigners, when I didn't have my original passport on me on one occasion, my Chinese friend kindly used her Chinese ID which was scanned.
Reason five: mass testing for just a few cases of COVID
Google the news stories of mass testing at Shanghai Pudong Airport last year, Shanghai Disneyland recently or the outbreaks during this summer.
Reason six: all those that test positive have to be treated in hospital and their homes are disinfected. People that live nearby have to quarantine in a government specified venue and have their homes disinfected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59249485
Reason seven: China's borders are still closed with entry restrictions.
Tourists and international students (except from S. Korea) have not been allowed in since early 2020.
Reason eight: quarantine for anybody entering China really early on
The Chinese friend I mentioned above that teaches at a school had to quarantine for around 14 days when she returned to Shanghai from the UK during Feb 2020. Yes mate, Feb 2020. When did the UK government require 14 day self isolation for people entering the UK? June 2020! Too late mate.
This gives you an idea of how serious China has taken COVID-19 to the point of being draconian at times. China didn't want to take chances and took action early last year unlike countries like the UK that dragged their feet until it was too late.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safrican-doctor-says-pa...
> Initial reported infections were among university students—younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease—but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks.
"It's a paradox of public health that being too clean can sometimes lead to disease. For centuries, infants were routinely exposed to the poliovirus in their unsanitary living conditions. Polio rarely causes paralysis in infants, partly because of the maternal antibodies still present in their systems. In the 1900s, many countries cleaned up their water and sanitation systems, and houses in more affluent communities were routinely cleaned, reducing exposure to microbes. By the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, new mothers, especially those in the middle class, had no antibodies in their immune systems to pass on to their children. When children were exposed to the poliovirus in later years, they were defenseless against the disease."
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/diseases/polio...
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/composition-dosag... [1] https://www.fda.gov/media/75695/download
Also in your second link, in page 8 says
> All children should receive four doses of IPV at ages 2, 4, 6 to 18 months, and 4 to 6 years.
Once everybody has encountered SARS2 at least once, it may become as harmless as the other endemic coronaviruses. That is to say, not entirely harmless, but nothing to lose sleep over.
It will never go away. How we deal with that is up to us.
Covid will stop being a concern only after safe and incredibly efficient antiviral drug is developed, which might take decades.
Antivirals have a very limited window of opportunity. Nothing will make our concerns disappear. At some point, we need to move on.
This is the inconvenient truth that absolutely nobody in the establishment is even remotely willing to even consider and a big part of the debate that is being replaced with an accusation contest.
What do we do when the vaccination program only works as promised by the scientists developing it, and not as hoped for by the politicians ordering it?
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/effectiveness-dur...