China's demented zero-Covid policy is no longer about health... It's about power and mass surveillance : author Ian Williams

[fallstuff]

China's demented zero-Covid policy is no longer about health... It's about power and mass surveillance, writes author IAN WILLIAMS​

The scene is like something from a horror film. A horde of terrified shoppers battling a crew of uniformed guards, desperate to escape the building in which they have been locked.

It looks like hysteria after a terror attack — yet this is footage from a Saturday afternoon at an Ikea store in Shanghai, following an announcement that a Covid case had been traced to the shop.

A message blared over the sound system that the store was going into lockdown and police were on their way to put everybody inside into quarantine. Mobile phone footage captured the chaos as shoppers abandoned trollies and stampeded towards the exits, crowds fighting security staff trying to seal off the building.

The Ikea lockdown took place in August after a single shopper had been exposed to a six-year-old boy with an asymptomatic dose of Covid-19. Those unable to escape were barricaded inside for four hours before being bussed to quarantine.

Eventually 83,000 people in the area were tested in connection with the boy's case, but nobody apart from the boy himself tested positive, according to the local government.

Fresh in the minds of those panicked shoppers was the grim experience of a two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year. People died because of lack of access to health care. Children were separated from parents and forced into quarantine. There were food shortages. Residents were barricaded in their apartment buildings.

This cycle of madness seems to be the new normal in President Xi Jinping's China.

Last weekend, Li Qiang, the Communist Party boss of Shanghai, was rewarded for his zero-Covid fanaticism. At a party congress in Beijing, he was promoted by party leader Xi Jinping to be his second in command. He was also made a member of the party's seven-man standing committee and is expected to be confirmed as premier early next year.

At the same gathering, Xi tightened his grip on power, grabbing an unprecedented third term. This made him China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Qiang applauded heartily as Xi doubled down on his Covid strategy, describing the battle to eliminate the virus as a 'people's war'.

China's borders will remain effectively closed and there is to be no let-up in the endless cycles of lockdowns and mass testing. Not a nod from Xi towards the huge economic costs, the social toll and mental stress he is imposing on China in pursuit of a goal few experts believe achievable.

Xi's position seems even more ludicrous in the context of a bombshell U.S. Senate report that found the Covid pandemic was most likely caused by a leak from a research facility in Wuhan.

It's clear that zero-Covid is now primarily about politics, power and mass surveillance, not health. Its rigid enforcement has become a gauge of loyalty to the president. Defeating the virus has become central to the cult of Xi, for whom it is a measure of the Chinese Communist Party's superiority over the West.

Link:

China's zero-Covid policy not about health but power and surveillance

IAN WILLIAMS: Last weekend, Li Qiang, the Communist Party boss of Shanghai, was rewarded for his zero-Covid fanaticism. He was promoted by party leader Xi Jinping (pictured).

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[epebble]

China's demented zero-Covid policy is no longer about health... It's about power and mass surveillance, writes author IAN WILLIAMS​

The scene is like something from a horror film. A horde of terrified shoppers battling a crew of uniformed guards, desperate to escape the building in which they have been locked.

It looks like hysteria after a terror attack — yet this is footage from a Saturday afternoon at an Ikea store in Shanghai, following an announcement that a Covid case had been traced to the shop.

A message blared over the sound system that the store was going into lockdown and police were on their way to put everybody inside into quarantine. Mobile phone footage captured the chaos as shoppers abandoned trollies and stampeded towards the exits, crowds fighting security staff trying to seal off the building.

The Ikea lockdown took place in August after a single shopper had been exposed to a six-year-old boy with an asymptomatic dose of Covid-19. Those unable to escape were barricaded inside for four hours before being bussed to quarantine.

Eventually 83,000 people in the area were tested in connection with the boy's case, but nobody apart from the boy himself tested positive, according to the local government.

Fresh in the minds of those panicked shoppers was the grim experience of a two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year. People died because of lack of access to health care. Children were separated from parents and forced into quarantine. There were food shortages. Residents were barricaded in their apartment buildings.

This cycle of madness seems to be the new normal in President Xi Jinping's China.

Last weekend, Li Qiang, the Communist Party boss of Shanghai, was rewarded for his zero-Covid fanaticism. At a party congress in Beijing, he was promoted by party leader Xi Jinping to be his second in command. He was also made a member of the party's seven-man standing committee and is expected to be confirmed as premier early next year.

At the same gathering, Xi tightened his grip on power, grabbing an unprecedented third term. This made him China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Qiang applauded heartily as Xi doubled down on his Covid strategy, describing the battle to eliminate the virus as a 'people's war'.

China's borders will remain effectively closed and there is to be no let-up in the endless cycles of lockdowns and mass testing. Not a nod from Xi towards the huge economic costs, the social toll and mental stress he is imposing on China in pursuit of a goal few experts believe achievable.

Xi's position seems even more ludicrous in the context of a bombshell U.S. Senate report that found the Covid pandemic was most likely caused by a leak from a research facility in Wuhan.

It's clear that zero-Covid is now primarily about politics, power and mass surveillance, not health. Its rigid enforcement has become a gauge of loyalty to the president. Defeating the virus has become central to the cult of Xi, for whom it is a measure of the Chinese Communist Party's superiority over the West.

Link:

China's zero-Covid policy not about health but power and surveillance

IAN WILLIAMS: Last weekend, Li Qiang, the Communist Party boss of Shanghai, was rewarded for his zero-Covid fanaticism. He was promoted by party leader Xi Jinping (pictured).

www.dailymail.co.uk

I too think it may be excessive, but casting aspersions on it is absurd. Every society has a right to do what it thinks is best. Looks like they want zero Covid even if economy suffers. How is it different from, say, many countries avoiding fossil fuels (or nuclear energy) for fear of climate change?

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

Chinese are extremist. Chinese believe there can be only 1 China. That is why China considers Taiwan as Chinese territory.

 

[Han Patriot]

500 ppl are dying daily in the US due to covid. Total 70,000 people died due to covid since the first Shanghai lockdown. Look at these evil Chinese, they should have let 1mil people die. Such evil people. Demented people. Lol

 

[JSCh]

Seem the last reported covid related death is in May.

The world most populous nation has successfully contain the no. of covid related death.

It is achievable, and has been achieved.

Just that it is not easy.

No free lunch in this world.

 

[mili]

Dont worry, it's only old people..........
now it's only children.....
Next, it's only people, or maybe they already here.

Zero covid BAD !

Staff shortages make patient surges harder for children's hospitals -- and the situation won't get better soon | CNN

Amid a surge of respiratory infections, children's hospitals across the United States are so busy that some had to set up tents to handle patient overflow.

edition.cnn.com

Staff shortages make patient surges harder for children’s hospitals – and the situation won’t get better soon​

By Jen Christensen, CNN
Updated 5:11 PM EDT, Fri October 28, 2022
......................................
CNN —
Amid a surge of respiratory infections, children’s hospitals across the United States are so busy that some had to set up tents to handle patient overflow..............................


Seasonal respiratory viruses fill children’s hospitals every year, but the number of beds that are full now is well above the average.
.......................................

 

[Catalystic]

China only making its people into mental health cases by these severe shit
Or maybe thats the actual plan. What a sick country

 

[beijingwalker]

Why is China still implementing lockdowns?​

One of the reasons is that China has a significant number of elderly people and the percentage of inoculation among them has been quite low. This has led to a situation where if the lockdowns are lifted then many people might die, something Xi is concerned about as he mentioned in his address that saving lives is the priority.

China only making its people into mental health cases by these severe shit
Or maybe thats the actual plan. What a sick country

By my first hand living experience in both China and US, I m pretty certain that there are way more people who have mental problems in US than in China. Many Americans have drug and alcohol related psychological disorders.