>

We will never know.
In Austria the chancellor initially proclaimed that " soon everyone will know someone who died" of it.
That was three years ago and - as it is with most things any politician said - never became reality, but for once in our favor.
R of 16. >

The world cup is over mate R16 was a couple of weeks ago >

Yep and France got a mystery flu too. >

Omassi variant >

I live in Nanjing. My girlfriend and I are just now recovering from Covid. Both our parents have gotten it. Basically every friend we know have too. 
We self tested at home, and self quarantined, so I don't know if the official numbers would count cases like us. >

Is it a new strain or just so populated there? >

Their vaccine is mediocre, their vaccination rates are low, and they have a massive population. They’ve been living on borrowed time. It was gonna blow up sooner or later.
Edit: They’ve also been constantly locked down, so much of the populace hasn’t been exposed to all the variants like we constantly are. >

Overall it is less effective than most vaccines is the point. >

People on here keep making it seem like it's useless.
Also only the mRNA ones, it's similar to AZ and JJ because all 3 use traditional technologies. >

Who knows how many people have already died in China. Same as India where they gave up trying to count. We will probably never know. >

unless they're hiding the bodies, massive amounts of cremation and such would show up (at some point in the future). It's pretty hard to hide this many coffins. >

I mean, they have almost a decades worth of concentration camp experience. I'm sure they know how to hide the bodies. >

China are not going to be hiding anything, I speak to people in China every day, everyone knows what is going on. Unlike before, the Chinese people demanded this easing of the restrictions, so the Chinese government will not feel the need to cover things up, they will see themselves as responding to the demand of the people and any consequences are on them. >

It's not because people are asking to be opened up, but China has become more and more difficult, and it turns out that before the opening up, the virus has already begun to spread on a large scale.  The Chinese government just shifted the responsibility to the protesters, you are the Chinese government's epidemic prevention policy from one extreme to another >

Why is China so difficult? I have wondered what their mentality is resuming such incredible control over the country that was "inherited" from dynasties after the country was united as one big ass place from all these tiny little pieces. With thousands of years of records and cultural tradition. Creating a common language. 
And now... Tyranny in the 21st century. No privacy, lack of human rights. The world is such a strange and sad place. >


Why is China so difficult?

The people of China have never really experienced a functional government where individualism or individual decisions where revered or held up as important. Even if they were presented with the option of democracy, they would reject it. 
Their culture minimizes the individual and maximizes the collective. Authoritarians use this to their advantage to create powerful, lasting, autocratic governments. 
Compare this to Western European and North American nations and you see the difference, with how our philosophy and culture has, for the most part, upheld and revered individualism and liberalism. The importance of the individual and their individual rights, given to them via NATURAL LAW (ie rights are inherent). This is a completely different perspective than the Chinese notion of how a person is merely a part of a collective. >

It makes sense though. The big river basins need to be properly irrigated and maintained by a powerful state, otherwise people will starve by the tens of millions. In Europe where people relied much more on rain to irrigate their crops (Something humans can't control), collectivism was less common, though religion more powerful than in the east. >

I beg to differ, Europe had its fair share of powerful states with collective action creating continent spanning roads, huge and elaborate buildings, ships, etc. Otoh China had multiple mass famines over the ages hinting that perhaps the collectively managed basins might be better off in individuals hands. >

Yes and Europe had its share of autocratic tyrannies. Roads and trade are important for economies, but unless they require trade to feed their population, it's far less important than irrigation for crops, hence China being even worse than Europe when it comes to autocracy.
I'm sorry but saying that river irrigation should be in individual hands rather than state hands is downright nonsensical. Look at what happened to the watersheds in the American west due to states competing for water. They have had the worst drought in history, that would had been easily prevented had the rivers been controlled by a single authority. The literal reason why mass famines happened in China was due to irrigation failures by the state. If not properly irrigated, the yellow river system can only support a fraction of the population, which is why people starved. Sure there probably would have been less famine deaths if there was no central authority. But that is only because the country would have been unable to support a large population in the first place! >

I live in Beijing at the moment and everyday I have friends who are losing grandparents and more.
To go to one extreme to another is pure chaos. I cant get any test kits, paracetomel or ibuprofen. Madness >

I know our countries haven't been the best friends lately, but I'm wishing good health to you, your friends, family, and all other Chinese people. Love, an Australian >

She could be an expat mate. >

Doesn't the rapid spread of Covid in China and India increase the chances of it mutating into something worse or does the opposite happen?  would it eventually burn out?   will it potentially cause travel restrictions again? >

If i understand it correctly, the 1918 flu just kept mutating and mutating until and to this day we still have some sort of 1918 flu variant. I believe this is the path covid is headed
One reason the 1918 flu was so deadly back then was because antibiotics weren’t invented yet and i bet many folks died from secondary infections
I assume those who survived the 1918 flu eventually developed some form of immunity or that it just mutated into a weaker variant and subvariants similar to how covid mutated into a weaker omicron variant and subvariants >

You don’t treat the flu with antibiotics. The flu is a virus… >

Right but they’re saying secondary infections caused death. Like you get the flu and then pneumonia and the pneumonia kills you. Today we have antibiotics to treat the pneumonia.