The "zero Covid" approach has been doable with the "old" virus variants, but with Omicron being so infectious, it's (IMHO) simply not feasible anymore. And I wouldn't call it "non-threatening", maybe less threatening. Maybe now we are at the stage where we can really compare it with the flu and handle it with the same approach. Of course maybe another variant will appear that's as infectious as Omicron but as dangerous as the previous variants, then we really have a problem...

Same with delta and Thailand. Thailand (with thousands of km of land border) was making Covid Zero work (ignoring the fucking the tourism industry got) until delta came along. I think China is about to show us Covid Zero can’t survive omicron.

Yes, but here in NZ heavy but most;y short lockdowns, and more importantly border closures have given us the time to get our vax rates into the 90%+ double vaxxed level - it means that Omicron is now zooming through, but our death rate from the beginning of the pandemic is likely to be relatively tiny compared with countries that let it rip - we just crossed 100 deaths total since the beginning of 2020 which is still more than the drop in the road toll in lockdown and reduction in deaths from flu - we're still ahead on the deal - it will get worse before it gets better but 99% of us will still be here.

China is in roughly the same position, apparently their vaccine isn't as good as the mRNA ones, but it still provides protection and again they've had the time to get most people vaccinated before omicron passes through, they'll be better off because of it

It wouldn't be so bad if it was actually comparable to the Flu. We've had case numbers falling off the cliff since the end of January only for them to start trending up again at the beginning of March. This isn't remotely like the seasonal behaviour of the Flu.

Yup, exactly my point. I think the only issues with softer measures are, what if you get a more dangerous variant mixed in.

New Zealand is an island, i think in many cases China is too ( not geographically )

In Europe, a lot of travel remained possible although it wasn't advised. People work with work permits could relatively easy cross countries too during lockdowns.

The worst that happened was at the start, that people had to stay within their neighborhood for a while, but that changed pretty quickly.

Currently, Omicron is no threat anymore for vaccinated people. So I'm not sure why china would go into lockdown. Vaccine underperforming?

( Belgium)

I wouldn't bet on Omicron being non-threatening. Omicron is less threatening not because it's weaker, but because people have been either vaccinated or exposed before. Now the question is how effective are Chinese vaccines against Omicron (in terms of making symptoms less severe). Still needs to wait and see, probably in the coming weeks.

"Omicron is less threatening not because it's weaker, but because people have been either vaccinated or exposed before."

Omicron likes the bronchi more than the lungs, which translates into a lot less pneumonia cases. That is the reason why so few people die of Omicron.

"so few" ... yet enough that our area stayed in maximum stage for an awful long time after case counts came down because the ICU system was so clogged by the unvaccinated.

The lag was because a lot of those people left in body bags. And the ones who survived left in pretty bad shape.

Omicron may not be as fatal percentage-wise, but it's still plenty fatal and a LOT more contagious so it's got numbers on its side.

I live in New Zealand, we’re basically letting COVID rip now.

At least we were lucky enough to get to a high vaccination rate before Omicron started, it’s super infectious.

I got it despite 3 vaccinations and always masking up outside with KN95. But very mild which I guess was the point.

Because of the many lockdowns before, this was the strategy of the government, any more lockdowns would guarantee change of government next election.

> we’re basically letting COVID rip now

This is the way.

Vaccinate the population as much as possible, then pursue super immunity for what's to come via exposure to this luckily less severe and highly contagious variant while the vaccines are still potent.

I don't know how people square "let everyone get it" with points about how immunity after getting it only seems to stick around for 2 months, or even less with variants!

Unless you're saying we should purposefully infect everyone at the same time. I don't have a better answer, but I don't like pretending that this will magically improve just cuz everyone gets sick once.

This is in the context of New Zealand, which has a high vaccination rate. We're not talking about unvaccinated populations.

AIUI lasting immunity is most robust through exposure to the virus after vaccination. Greater than booster shots.

Also furthering the COVID Zero policy while participating in the global economy is just not feasible now. If every country did what New Zealand did, we would have stomped out this virus the same way we did SARS. I'm sorry that we didn't. But now that major economic zones like Europe and the Americas are taking a "treat COVID like the flu" approach, countries like New Zealand and Taiwan need to choose between following suit or committing to perpetual, never-ending isolation.

"In my opinion china's policies have been the best"

Interesting, but could you really express any other opinion without fear of repression of some kind, while living in china?

Yes. I can say anything I like about Xi Jinping when I'm on HN. HN is blocked in China btw.

So you use a VPN/Tor and trust this connection?

Are you sure, the thought of "getting caught" does not influence your opinions?

Because I think, it would influence my opinions I would dare to share.

But I am ignorant about actual way of life in china, is it common and maybe even somewhat normal for tech people to have this freedom to just connect outside of the great firewall?

Chinese are able to express negative opinions without any retribution (beyond their posts being deleted/moderated). What China doesn't accept is challenges to its power structures. Meaning protests, boycotts, unions, organising, public lobbying. Every large business or voluntary organisation has Party members appointed to ensure they don't interfere with the Party's power or strategy.* Sharing a VPN or negative opinion to one friend is fine, sharing to everybody you know on a stage is not.

* https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/07/15/will-there-be-a-ci...

I'm Chinese and this comment aligns exactly with my experience. Please don't take every word from people in Chinese mainland to be dictated by the Party. The big brother would get too busy arresting everyone being outspoken.

> Because I think, it would influence my opinions I would dare to share.

I would be amazed if the MSS decides to respond to these random pseudonymous comments I posted on HN/Reddit/Twitter, in English. I expect that talking to them about my shitposts in English (and then coreced into signing an "agreement" that I won't do it again), would be an exciting and entertaining experience :p ofc I might be outliers

> But I am ignorant about actual way of life in china, is it common and maybe even somewhat normal for tech people to have this freedom to just connect outside of the great firewall?

Well, Google is blocked. Baidu or Bing isn't nearly good for random tech queries. More importantly, even though not blocked, GitHub / DockerHub etc is painfully slow in China due to some misfortune about how China is connected to the global Internet. Without a tunnel I just can't work efficiently.

Every corps I worked for in China so far provided free Internet access for employees (at least engineers).

To a first approximation, China does not care about people posting outside the GFW in languages that are not Chinese.

I use a VPN. I do not really trust it but I do not really believe they would care what I write about there policies on HN.

That must be great for productivity!

it's always kinda funny how misinformed people are about china. if you actually think china has the tech to force 1.4 billion people to share the same thoughts then a. china has already won tech war, or b. you are just brainwashed.

Yeah, it is really ironic. I've heard a story that one of the reasons Sinovac is not as effective as other vaccinations is that they didn't have enough infected people for the trials.

How would that work? They develop the vaccine first, then do the trials. And in any case the Chinese vaccines were trialed outside China (Brazil, Philippines, others - not sure about Sinovac specifically) largely for this reason.

Sinovac doesn't seem to be effective against Omicron - https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/02/03/sinovac-vaccine-ef...