China's COVID-19 “mayhem” that has been widely reported by the usual China-sceptic media – BBC, CNN, CNA, SCMP, ST, etc - during the last couple of days has prompted me to write this article.
How did the perfect storm happen? I am no expert in medical matters. But I argue the knowledge is all commonsense if you care to put on your thinking cap.
China has been containing the virus very well over the last three years. Unfortunately, its top-down inertia did not allow it to prepare for the winding down, even though it was clear that the new strains like Omicron, though very infectious, are not deadly. If you look at the situations all over the world, few did what China have been doing. Most allowed nature to take its own course, though vaccinations were administered. Singapore perhaps is the only country that had come up with a planned wind-down.
The world has to live with the virus. Sure, some will die after being infected. The same goes for every illness and disease. An unattended sore may cause a leg to be amputated. To achieve zero-COVID is an impossibility.
And that is China’s problem. Or a typical Chinese problem.
The top-down decision-making culture paralyses initiatives. Experts like Zhong Nan-shan are world class, but they have to abide by political decisions. The Chinese leaders are a very competent lot, but the West’s bashing has made them very defensive. They want to show the world that their zero-COVID approach is the envy of everyone. Alas, people are restless, and they want to go back to a normal life after three long years of restrictions here and there. Cases naturally exploded.
But that is nothing. Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are experiencing that right now.
Lifespan in China today is pretty long. There are many old people. But why the medical services have become so helpless all of a sudden?
It is Chinese obsession to pre-empt that is a leading cause. Let me explain a little.
When vaccines were finally brought into Malaysia, all of us were anxious; we wanted to get ourselves inoculated at the earliest possible opportunity. We were prepared to resort to all sorts of means to get in front of the queue. That 超车(chāochē, overtaking) mindset is real in most of us. China’s Lian Hua capsules were touted as a cure for the disease. We lost no time in ordering quantities on-line and hoarded them just in case.
Now this is happening in China. The spike led everyone to rush to the pharmacies, hence the empty shelves!
They also jam their ambulance service with calls and rush their loved ones to hospitals once the slightest fever is detected. 90% of these “patients” should have stayed home to recover. Naturally, hospitals were overwhelmed, scenes of which the China-sceptic media love to broadcast to the world. Because of the man-made bottlenecks, many old sufferers died. (A headline article in the SCMP several days ago said exactly the same thing – the journalist reported that his friend’s father had to wait for hours to be admitted to ICU and only to expire minutes later there. Sure, it is a sad story, but the reporter was blaming China’s unpreparedness for the spike, which I thought was penned with some agenda.)
These journalists went on to say that Chinese vaccines were not as effective as the West’s, and they cited experts’ prediction that 1 million (some even say 1.5 million) people in China might die of the disease in this outbreak. These people are idiots. And the experts must be pseudo experts! Like Gordon Chang.
The first strain was certainly deadly. If you got infected, you stood a high chance of going to Nirvana regardless of your status and age. Most countries suffered dearly, but not China. They wanted you to live and contribute to nation building. Yes, the efficacy of their vaccines, which are the inactivated type, are lower than those of the West’s mRNA varieties, but they would help prevent severity even if you got infected. On top of that the Chinese medical authority also introduced herbal concoctions to supplement. mRNA does not fully prevent infection too. It will also lessen severity if one gets infected. (I had four jabs of Pfizer but duly got infected a week or so after my fourth jab!) Western pharmaceutical giants love to boast about the superiority of mRNA. I am not sure if its claims are quite valid. But this very herd of journalists I mentioned above will swallow their sales line, hook, and sinker. Ditto the pseudo-experts.
Why do I say these journalists are creating a storm in the teacup?
When it comes to organizing things, CPC has no peers. They are able to mobilize resources across the country, despite China’s size, with a snap of fingers. Remember how they built a hospital dedicated for this purpose in 10 days? Yes, they might be caught with their pants down in the first couple of days, but ten new pants will be on their way. Chinese by nature is very kneah-su (Fujianese lingo, meaning “afraid to lose.”)
And all these silly 1 or 1.5 million fatality projections! Omicron is not as deadly as the earlier strains. Even if China follows Trump’s or Biden’s way of handling the pandemic, i.e., doing little, it will never add up to these projections! What more is you have a society that is so determined to place people’s lives first.
Nonetheless, Chinese must learn not to be too anxious. Do not rush to hospitals or pharmacies just because your throat becomes a little scratchy. Give way to those who genuinely need medical attention – especially old people with preconditions. And you will help to prove these idiots wrong!
These media people just want China to look bad. And they are looking at every opportunity. Period.
No comments:
Post a Comment