As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) locked down Shanghai and nearby regions in its quixotic quest for “zero-COVID,” many suppliers halted production, with some shutdowns lasting weeks. As economic pains from the draconian policies grew, China has been pushing to resume factory operations, with Apple suppliers given priority for factory restarts.
Yang Jie for The Wall Street Journal:
In Kunshan, a city in Jiangsu about 30 miles west of Shanghai, the local government released a list last week that designated several major Apple suppliers, including Luxshare Precision Industry Co. and Wistron Corp., as “Covid-free” enterprises, granting them priority to resume production.
China’s central government has vowed to help restart factories, including Taiwan-based manufacturers. “We will continue to work with relevant authorities to actively assist Taiwanese companies to overcome the impact caused by the pandemic and help them resume production and operation as soon as possible,” said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, on Wednesday. Many Apple suppliers are based in Taiwan.
MacDailyNews Take: The impact isn’t from the “pandemic,” the impact is from some countries’ and people’s overreaction to what was a bad flu that’s long since morphed into a bad cold, if that.
Chief Executive Tim Cook said Thursday that Apple’s constraints were mainly centered around the Shanghai corridor. The company’s estimate for as much as $8 billion in affected sales reflects the various ramp-ups necessary to get production back up and running, he said.
“On a positive front, almost all of the affected final-assembly factories have now restarted,” Mr. Cook said.
Quanta Computer Inc., a top assembler of MacBooks that is also Taiwan-based, has resumed some of its production at its Shanghai plant on April 15, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported last week. There, some 2,000 workers out of more than 40,000 returned to make products including laptops for Apple. That number was set to rise to around 6,000 workers by late April, according to Xinhua, which quoted a factory director.
MacDailyNews Take: For the amount of business Apple delivers to China, the company and its suppliers/assemblers deserve top priority.
Hopefully, the CCP is finally figuring out that “zero-COVID” is a pipe dream and will soon adopt reasonable, rational measures that do not violate its citizens’ basic human rights.
As we wrote over four months ago:
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction?
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
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The bribes worked
AppallCynic was reported to have passed from COVID. Sad. R.I.P.
1 million American deaths isn’t a “bad flu”
How many of those deaths were from COVID and how many were with COVID?
If you were an epidemiologist instead of a liar, you would know where to find the data.
What data? From the CDC? Homeland Security? Just what data should we consider legit?
You are absolutely correct, @John swallows the Democrat liberal biased media misinformation every-time.
Two relatives that work in nursing homes were pressured by management if a person was in the home and slowly passing, but if they contracted Covid for one day, it was monetary advantageous to the business list Covid as the cause of death.
Bottom Line: For the morons that believe manipulated CDC, administration and media numbers you have be CONNED.
No one knows the true TOTALS because of systemic manipulation…
We get it. You can’t discuss the methodology or the statistics, but you’re trained to attack anyone that disagrees with the complete BS Cheeto “facts”.
It’s hilarious that nobody has any data good enough for you except the college dropout thugs who support Cheeto. They have no facts, only FUD. Man you have been brainwashed!
Hey brainless, NO, you don’t get it. The numbers have been manipulated by every nursing home, every hospital and every doctor’s office in America and then fed to the CDC. Why? Monetary compensation.
Regarding posting data, how to police and report widespread FRAUD & FALSE DATA? Medicare reporting, anyone?…
We get it. You can’t discuss the methodology or the statistics, but you’re trained to attack anyone who agrees with the facts.
It’s hilarious that nobody has any data good enough for you except the college dropout thugs who don’t support Cheeto (Anitifa?). They have no facts, only FUD. Man you have been brainwashed!
I agree with John.
Many more people died of COVID (as in … close to 1 million Americans) than have died from the flu.
Yes, over time COVID will become less of a problem.
But ALSO yes, the cautions put in place (vaccines, masks, etc) made sense, saved lives at the time, and continue to do so.
And why has MDN always been a home for right-wing anti-news, (as in ‘COVID is not the problem’) when oit clearly was and perhaps still is?
I check-in here here for Apple (and peripheral) news, not for political opinion. I can not be the only one who feels that way.
Please MDN: lay off the politics and stick with the News we come here for.
Thank you.
First of all:
The rest of your comment is equally as useless and misinformed.
Those deaths attributed to COVID were primarily due to a bunch of fat, sick, people who were primed to die from pneumonia, influenza, etc. soon anyway.
The responses to COVID were a vast overreaction and brought out the authoritarian impulses of mainly left-or-center politicians in power.
COVID was/is only a problem because there are fat (COVID loves to attack the obese) and sick people. If it wasn’t COVID, it’d been pneumonia, influenza, etc. soon enough.
The COVID fear porn lobby exists to enrich Big Pharma. It abuses data to make COVID look like The Black Death when it clearly is not, when seen from the dispassionate view of an actuarial table.
That “bad flu” was one of the leading causes of death for Apple’s home country, which at the latest toll sits at about 1 million deaths for that country.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-leading-cause-of-death-ranking/#Age-specific%20rank%20of%20COVID-19%20deaths%20among%20leading%20causes%20of%20death%20in%20the%20U.S.,%20January%202021%20-%20January%202022
Bad stats do not bolster your argument.
MacDailyNews’ description of COVID is spot on.
If you don’t like the stats, you might want to consider providing an alternative to bolster your argument. Otherwise, nice cheerleading.
Conned Liberal that swallows FALSE stats hook, line and sinker.
No matter how hard you try, the information is FALSE and you’re to gullible and dumb to realize it.
Thank you for not responding USA HATER…
You’re right. The figure of one million American deaths is way out of line. The truth is much higher. The one statistic that CAN’T be fudged (well, not really) are the total deaths for the country in a given period of time. Statisticians can predict the expected number of deaths, and have tracked actual deaths against that figure. The “excess deaths” over the past two years are more than a million – at least 100,000 more, in fact.
But of course, you don’t believe in facts or statistics or science, do you?
Glad you don’t work at Apple…
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
I’m going to repeat this again for the brainless Leftists around here that WORSHIP at the altar of Big Democrat Government.
The numbers have been manipulated by every nursing home, every hospital and every doctor’s office in America and then fed to the CDC. Why? Monetary compensation. Happens with Medicare false reporting daily.
NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUE TOTALS because of SYSTEMIC MANIPULATION for monetary gain.
Hello?…
I’ve got some sad news for you:
Those Americans were going to die soon anyway, if not from COVID, from pneumonia or flu because they were old, had cancer, or were sick, mainly from their own doing-, i.e. sedentary, overweight, diabetic like far too many Americans.
That’s why America had a high number of deaths attributed rightly, but mostly wrongly, to COVID. That’s why blacks had a higher number of deaths than whites: poor diet, poor health, inferior healthcare, etc.
Too many Americans are (were) FAT. That’s been the case – and they’ve been warned – for many decades. They had to pay the piper eventually, and now some – a relative handful – have. COVID preys on FAT.
Don’t be fooled by stats advertising COVID deaths that were really just expected, normal deaths for the time period, especially for a subset of the population with one or more ticking time bomb comorbidities..
Once again, another Liberal has been CONNED and believes government manipulated numbers.
Not a surprise for an Aussie locked in his home by government conning him would die if went out on the lawn to pick up the paper.
Coward, thank you for not responding…
26 million people in Shanghai locked down without foods or water in high rise apartment buildings, they jumped off the buildings and hanging themsellves in despair. Xi Jinping not only destroys the economy but also destroys people lives because he wants power.
The scenario you depict sounds exactly like a DJT wet dream. You know, to “own” the workers who make Ivanka’s fashions.
Sounds like an ideal relocation option for Anthony Botchi and the new leader of the US Bureau of Proper Thinking. History, of recent record, shows Joe and fam, might be well-placed too.
Flu typically kills about 30,000 per year in the US. Covid, over 1 million in two years. It was NOT just a bad flu. Geez. Stating that it was a bad flu shows a completely irrational disconnect from what actually happened.
I agree that China’s current zero-covid policy is quixotic, but they do have a very dense population which makes for easy transmission. If there is still a large unvaccinated population, things could get out of hand quickly. That of course is what they are trying to avoid. Is this the best approach? I’m not qualified to judge.
I’ll repeat, since you seem to be held under sway by the COVID alarmist brigade (working directly, indirectly, consciously, or unconsciously for Big Pharma):
Those Americans were going to die soon anyway, if not from COVID, from pneumonia or flu because they were old, had cancer, or were sick, mainly from their own doing-, i.e. sedentary, overweight, diabetic like far too many Americans.
That’s why America had a high number of deaths attributed rightly, but mostly wrongly, to COVID. That’s why blacks had a higher number of deaths than whites: poor diet, poor health, inferior healthcare, etc.
Too many Americans are (were) FAT. That’s been the case – and they’ve been warned – for many decades. They had to pay the piper eventually, and now some – a relative handful – have. COVID preys on FAT.
Don’t be fooled by stats advertising COVID deaths that were really just expected, normal deaths for the time period, especially for a subset of the population with one or more ticking time bomb comorbidities..
Your analysis is pure bullshit. Real epidemiologists and statisticians know how many people are “going to die soon anyway” for a typical year. This stuff is tracked VERY closely. And the number of “excess deaths” in the past two years is 1,110,000 and counting. That’s more than a million EXCESS deaths over and above the “just expected, normal deaths for the time period.” The only explanation for this is Covid.
I know that facts suck when your worldview insists otherwise, but that’s just how reality works. You can whine about some all-encompassing conspiracy, but it doesn’t hold water. Even if some deaths were “with” Covid as opposed to “from” Covid, there are countless more that were from Covid and never reported.
One thing you DO have right is that age and obesity are definite co-morbidities. So are evangelical Christianity, devotion to the Q conspiracy, and faith that Trump was somehow “cheated” when he lost the election in 2020.
FYI, Trump lost by the same slim margin (<100,000 votes across three key states) that he won the election in 2016. And based on demographics, Covid deaths since the vaccines were released are overwhelmingly from areas that traditionally vote Republican. It’d be the ultimate irony if the margin of victory in 2024 came down to all those dead Trump voters who insisted that Covid was “just a bad flu.”
Writer guy where did you get your data. CDC data shows that adjusted for total population black Americans have the highest death rate from Covid.
Data on race and ethnicity for more than 90% of people who died from COVID-19 reveal that the percent of Hispanic or Latino, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people who have died from COVID-19 is higher than the percent of these racial and ethnic groups among the total U.S. population
COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity showed that 34% of deaths were among non-Hispanic Black people, though this group accounts for only 12% of the total U.S. population.
92% of black Americans did not vote for Trump.
Cities with the most Covid Deaths
1. New York (Democrat)
2. Detroit (Democrat)
3. Chicago (Democrat)
4. Boston (Democrat)
5. Philadelphia (Democrat)
6. New Orleans (Democrat)
7. Los Angeles (Democrat)
8. Seattle (Democrat)
9. Miami (Democrat)
10. Atlanta (Democrat)
For a writer guy I imagine you suck at your job unless you write children’s fantasy books.
You think your cute argument, that supporting trump and identifying as an evangelical Christian is a co-morbidity for Covid-19 is a clever idea. But in reality you are just hiding your hateful bigotry behind your weak ill informed imagination. You are the very thing you clam you hate and you don’t even see it.
I know that facts suck when your worldview insists otherwise
There is no math where this is true. Excess deaths were significantly up. This is just denial of simple facts. Your username is hilarious.
So if you might die in the next 5 years, I suppose you believe it is ok if we just go ahead and kill you now? Your justification for discounting covid deaths is morally bankrupt and decidedly non-christian. How very sad for you.
COVID CASES USA 7-DAY AVG
61,179 MAY 02 2022
49,217 MAY 02 2021
It’s so sad to watch left behind liberals cry over the end of Covid control in election year politics. It’s impossible for “true believers “ to admit that now their trusted government has thrown the safety of the American people to the curb by ending, once essential, mask mandates and social distancing because continued Covid policies don’t poll well for the mid term elections. It seems from your perspective, At the end of the day the current administration is more concerned with keeping power then making best policies for the safety of Americans. So with current Covid rates higher then last year and the death rate still over 300 precious lives each day how can you live with the fact that life saving policies have been lifted for a political agenda, Was the Covid policies a lie then or a lie now because fundamentally the rate of sickness and death is still off the charts. Maybe the only thing that has changed is the political agenda. I feel sorry for you guys as you slowly realize your religion was a fraud. Now what to do. Mask or no mask? Where do you go when your god is dead.