This is a consequence of China’s zero-Covid policy. Nationally, the instruction is to eliminate outbreaks, even of new and milder variants. Leading up to the party congress local authorities appear to have reported inaccurately low numbers to avoid bad news for the leadership. Now, after the congress, the task is to quickly eliminate outbreaks to avoid the need for even harsher measures like full-city lockdowns like seen in Shanghai earlier this year. Additionally China has spent the past three years telling its population that the rest of the world has been irresponsibly murdering its citizens by adopting a “live with Covid” policy.

So when rumors of a possible lockdown of the factory or its economic zone started spreading, employees fled either because they feared an outbreak or because they didn’t want to get locked in there for an indeterminate period of time.

> Additionally China has spent the past three years telling its population that the rest of the world has been irresponsibly murdering its citizens by adopting a “live with Covid” policy.

Considering what I have heard about Long Covid, this appears to be a valid perspective

What have you heard about it? I find it hard to assess with the currently available information (and, apparently, so does the world given the huge disparities in politics).

Long covid is real and scary. So are cancer, heart attacks and car crashes, but it would be a really bad idea to skip a cost/benefit analysis of the possible counter measures available at societal level because of that.

> it would be a really bad idea to skip a cost/benefit analysis

Western leaders aren't doing any cost/benefit analysis at all - except to their political career.

We have a range of very low-cost, technological measures avaliable. For exampme upgrading schools with proper ventillation. We have scientific studies that show this would reduce likelihood of infection for everythint, from COVID to common cold. It would reduce CO2 concentrations in classrooms and help children be more alert and awake. There has been zero budget allocated to them.

In London I have seen UV sterilisation installed on handrails of the escalators, and ROI on that will be mostly zero.

The best estimate I found was from May of this year. At the time they estimated somewhere between 7.7 and 23 million cases of long Covid in the US.

Compare that with 1.6 million people getting a cancer diagnosis every year, about 40 thousand traffic fatalities and 2.2 million injured in traffic accidents.

Well, that sounds fairly staggering. Do you have a source link?

The long Covid and cancer numbers are from The NY Times podcast [1].

The traffic injuries and fatalities are from Wikipedia [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/podcasts/the-daily/long-c...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

Some of the worst kind of long covid is neurological. I and others I know had non-trivial (10-25%) cognitive deficit for multiple months after covid. For some reason, I also experienced the same after receiving my latest bivalent booster, but for a much shorter period of time (1-2 weeks instead of 12).

There has been relatively little in the media about the cognitive/neurological costs of covid to our society. If you get covid and your "sickness" is over in a week or two and you go back to work but you've had 15 points knocked off your IQ for half a year, what is the true cost of that to an entire civilization when scaled up to the whole planet?

Given the choice between having had covid and living under an authoritarian regime for the last three years, I'd have chosen the latter.

> what is the true cost of that to an entire civilization when scaled up to the whole planet?

What indeed? It's not 0. It's not infinite. But the cost of trying to reduce covid (and hence long covid) cases to 0 is infinite. It's a hard problem and entirely unclear where we should draw the line.

I truly do hope you (and all other affected) will get better.

> a valid perspective

I don't think that arbitrarily confining the population (under the threat of violence) is a valid perspective.

You are free to hole up. Does not mean the rest must do the same. We have already fucked up the economy and health care. This kill people too. Enough already

Lives > Money

In your dreams. In practice our lives are routinely traded for money. Simple example - government would pay for so many heart surgeries per year. Did not fit in current quota - wait. If you die meanwhile - nobody gives a shit. Corporate example - Google "ford pinto trading lives for money".

I have immuno-compromised and elderly family. They have to visit the post office, the passport office, the insurance, etc.

Every time they do, people are refusing to wear a simple mask and are putting them at risk. There is always a guy that is obviously ill and is coughing all over the place.

Like if you go to a nightclub ill, whatever, everyone is there by choice. But visiting a government establishments is a legal obligation.

Why is it that if you go into my house uninvited, fall onto a ditch and break your leg, I could be held responsible, but if I cought at your face on purpose to infect you, noone is at fault.

Why is it at least not a social norm to kick out sick and unmasked people from public institutions?

>"Why is it that if you go into my house uninvited, fall onto a ditch and break your leg, I could be held responsible?"

Because we have some really fucked up laws that should not exist. Go argue with the government

>"Why is it at least not a social norm to kick out sick and unmasked people from public institutions?"

Because The Socium does not want to have this norm. Might be unfair to some but who says the life is. As for your particular case - it is better if we try to build society where we do not need to go to a fucking passport office.

> is better if we try to build society where we do not need to go to a fucking passport office.

And lock up everyone immunocompromised for life, because we can't stomach the inconvenience of putting on a mask when we are sick.

Its a gosh darn good thing we don't implement policy based on things that ClumsyPilot has heard about!

Long Covid should be taken very seriously, but my understanding is that it is milder and less prevalent among the vaccinated. I don’t know if the hard figures “justify” something like a zero-Covid policy

China has maintained a zero Covid policy and has yet to lift it.

I think if it isn’t now it will be in China. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was a retaliatory move for the recent chip ban. No evidence of that whatsoever, pure speculation.

It seems highly plausible to me.