>

South Korea won't be the last.
Meanwhile, in Canada... >

It started in China with those deadly scenes from overcrowded hospitals.
It's mind boggling how utterly unprepared Cina is and COVID is hitting back at them exactly 3 years later.
Guess the Coronavirus refused to stick to the government plans. >

? 
havent been paying attention to china news lately?
China was undergoing unprecidented nationwide protests over its "zero covid" policy. some of the largest protests it has seen in recent memory. Eventually the government relaxed the policy finally about a month or two ago. 
Because Xi and the chinese government highly politicized and propagandized against western vaccines early on when Sinovax came around. most Chinese citizens absolutely refuse to trust western vaccines. this is ontop of a natural reluctance to get vaccinated especially by those living in the countryside, and the elderly.
It turns out Sinovax is FAR less effective than whats found in the west. as such many chinese citizens lack immunity and are especially vulnerable to all the newer strains that developed since the beggining of the pandemic...
this has created this "perfect storm" that china now finds itself in. with 37 million new cases being diagnosed per day. China lacks the medical facilities to deal with this level of infection as well. so were quite possibly seeing the beggining of another humongous health crisis.
edits: grammer and some extra sentances. >

the people protested the lockdowns, and the government stupidly lifted the lockdowns. The people also protested the various vaccine mandates when they were attempted, so the government made it voluntary, even for the ones that really should be taking it. So, I doubt the vaccination rates would go up even if it's a western one. >

The same lockdowns Reddit was lambasting China for just a couple weeks ago. >

How many more years of lockdowns do you need? >

I don't think that's their point. When Redditors saw the protests, they proclaimed how great the people protesting were and that it'd be another Tianenman. Instead, the government lifted lockdowns as the protestors wished, and now those same people are criticizing the action taken. The overwhelming viewpoint on mainstream subreddits is that China is bad, no matter what, and whatever policy they choose will be mindlessly criticized. 
Calling China a danger to the world for accepting we have to live with Covid, as the western world has done for almost 2 years now, is plainly nonsense, but nobody seems to actually think about what they're upvoting. >

Phased unlocking was a necessity to prevent the collapse of medical systems. Given the rate of serious outcomes given the efficacy of China's vaccine (and vaccination rates), and the lowered rate of serious outcomes from Omicron, they should experience a rate of hospitalisation 85-95% lower than a country opening up during delta without vaccination. 
Time will tell if their system can stand up to it, but opening up now is a very different situation compared to opening up 2 years ago, and I'm sure smarter people than you and I have done the math. >

The frustrating thing is that China waited until it got hit hard by a Covid wave to decide that now is the time to relax a lot of its travel restrictions ... which is hard to read as anything but a move to placate domestic unrest, which has begun to simmer recently, at the expense of the health of many people worldwide.
They could have relaxed their zero covid policies domestically and wait until the wave got reasonably contained while ramping up vaccinations before opening up travel but ... here we are, and it's hard to see it as anything but a cynical play for the domestic audience.  And then of course, now that countries are asking inbound travelers for Covid tests, they get to play the discrimination card and gin up more public support. >

The travel restrictions were only necessary because of their Zero COVID policy. Now that they abandoned it, of course the travel restrictions are also a thing of the past. Why would anyone expect them to prevent their citizens from leaving? No other country did that when they were hit by a wave. >

Yeah, should the US prohibit it's citizens to leave in order to protect the world against the XBB variant? But I guess in reddit's eyes Americans are people and Chinese are just disease vectors. Certainly, no one is looking forward to seeing their loved ones and family after 3 years, they're just set about spreading Covid. >


should the US prohibit it's citizens to leave in order to protect the world against the XBB variant?

American here, and yes, all nations with significant infection rates or new variants of concern should be significantly limiting international travel but, people being people, nobody wants to take unpopular action regardless of how necessary it might be.
Also, China likely gets shit on a little more heavily for their actions because China is both the source of the world's Covid woes and has repeatedly acted irresponsibly and with no concern for the impact their actions had on the rest of the world so there's not a lot of good will left for China (and that's not even considering their other human rights violations like Xingjian, the Yugurs, and China's increasingly aggressive posture in the western Pacific). >

So we have:
Testing requirements: Italy, Japan, US, South Korea, India
Decidedly no testing requirements: UK, France, Germany, Austria, Portugal
We'll see how it turns out. My bet is that it's not gonna make a difference, but who knows? >

it probably won't help. For the right price, they could pay for a negative test result. And even if the destination airport require a test on arrival, they potentially infected people on the flight over, who won't test positive until a few days later. >

Test everyone as they disembark, one person comes off the plane and tests positive, everyone on the plane wins a few weeks of quarantine. We can also literally do covid tests as people board the plane rather than rely on falsifiable documents, and sure, they're not 100% but better than "bro, trust me bro".
Cue "oh my god do you know how inconvenient that would be?" >

So you do already know how inconvenient that would be... >

I don't consider personal convenience to be a higher priority than halting or slowing the spread of a global pandemic. >

Well it's not your personal convenience we're talking about, and it's clear there's lots of things you don't consider, lol. >

How convenient do you think it is to contract Covid? How convenient do you think it is to prepare funerals and deal with estates? 
I found it fairly inconvenient when I reached out to a business contact to get some information I needed only to learn that he'd died of Covid the week before. I suspect he found his early death even more inconvenient than I did.
And it's true, I often do things the hard way simply to remind myself that a little inconvenience and trouble won't kill me. >

Well I'm not concerned with your personal convenience, so this argument seems awfully circular. >

Jello Biafra was a prophet. "Give me convenience or give me death" is truly the battlecry of the modern westerner. >

Let me guess, we are going to get a post regarding every single country >

And state! >

And city!