It'd be much like trying to recover money stolen by a drug addict though. Instant bankruptcy and proportionally nothing recovered, to the point that it's not even really worth it.

A drug addict with a $14T GDP.

With ~7M deaths and a ~$1-10M value of human life [1], that's $7-70T in losses in lives alone, before lost productivity and economic value.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#:~:text=In%20Wes....

Only if liability transfers to the state. Even if state-owned, plenty of state-owned enterprises have limited liability.

Even if that state has nukes?

i wonder what % of damage it caused to economy, compared to WW2 reparations.

The poor handling of the pandemic in many countries likely greatly increased the losses in those countries and also made it harder for other countries to get it under control. The tortfeasor would likely only be responsible for the losses that would have likely occurred if the pandemic had been handled competently.

A lot of countries would probably really not want to have the kind of public in-depth examination of their pandemic responses that would be necessary to figure damages.

Yup, I think that's the real worry of CCP officials and other world leaders, that not only will China lose face, lose influence, but also the world will demand reperation. That might cause a collapse of the already unstable Chinese system with ripple effects all over the world.