The Chinese Communist Party has caved and is now softening its stance regarding the severity of COVID-19 and has begun the process of easing coronavirus restrictions after widespread anger over the world’s most ludicrous COVID restrictions and lockdowns (and that’s really saying something) triggered massive protests in several cities across the country.
Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees the country’s coronavirus response, said on Wednesday that the virus’s ability to cause disease was weakening.
MacDailyNews Take: Better an entire year late, than never.
“The country is facing a new situation and new tasks in epidemic prevention and control as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated and experience in containing the virus is accumulated,” state media reported Sun as saying.
The mention of a weakening pathogenicity contrasts with earlier messages from authorities about the deadliness of the virus and the need to eradicate it.
Several cities continued to ease district lockdowns and allow businesses to reopen, although they have not directly referenced the protests that gathered momentum after a fire killed 10 people in the locked down Xinjiang city of Urumqi on Friday.
China Dissent Monitor, run by the US government-funded Freedom House, estimated at least 27 demonstrations took place across China from Saturday to Monday. Australia’s ASPI think-tank estimated 43 protests in 22 cities.
Curbs have also been eased in southwestern Chongqing, where close contacts will be allowed to isolate at home, while in central Zhengzhou, the site of a large Foxconn factory making Apple iPhones that has been the scene of recent unrest over COVID, announced the “orderly” resumption of businesses, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants.
https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1598378413601001477
Families in a hi-rise in China were locked into their apartments as their building caught fire. Urumqi, in Xinjiang Province
They burned alive as they couldn't escape and no one could get to them in time
This is directly on the CCP and Xi's Zero-Covid lockdown strategy pic.twitter.com/AWQ4oJA7Qg
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 28, 2022
According to Chinese social media, at least 38 Uyghur were burned to death in an apartment under Zero Covid locked down.
Stop worrying about offending China all the time. A better world is possible with regime change and self-determination for the Uyghur people. pic.twitter.com/EBr41U1UWc
— Kuzzat Altay (@KuzzatAltay) November 25, 2022
"Nine burned to death. More than a dozen died of suffocation, with a total is around 26," said a police at Ittipaq station "The number of deaths may be more than 40," said another police "We don’t have time to count the number of deaths."
— Mehmet Tohti (@MehmetTohti) December 1, 2022
MacDailyNews Take: Good news for Apple stock and for the Chinese people who’ve suffered and died needlessly due to the CCP’s irrational and quixotic “Zero COVID” insanity.
And, now, let’s take a visit to the “Told Ya So” file, in reverse chronological order:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
The problem isn’t COVID. The problem is the illogical, unworkable, delusional, self-defeating authoritarian response to COVID.
The average age of a Foxconn worker is 23 (before the CCP drove them away with the threat of more quixotic lockdowns). A 23 year old who gets COVID might not even notice they have it. Protect those with co-morbidities who might be at risk of serious complications (don’t compel older retirees into a closed factory setting, CCP Cuomo impersonators).
Letting COVID simply wash through a population of healthy twenty-three-year-olds (many of whom have already acquired natural immunity) is the rational decision. — MacDailyNews, November 16, 2022
There’s no such thing as zero-COVID, but this year is the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th party congress, so the farce will continue until the politics no longer dictate tilting at windmills. Then COVID will be allowed to wash through China, as it already has around much of the world. – MacDailyNews, May 9, 2022
Clearly, Apple under Tim Cook had, has, and, for the foreseeable future, seems like it will continue to have far too much exposure to China and the CCP’s overbearing and often irrational whims.
Memo to China: There’s no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
As we’ve said for years now, for better and worse, Apple is wedded to China. It will take many years to even begin to extricate itself from this relationship, at least the the point where the company has some meaningful leverage that the CCP understands. – MacDailyNews, April 8, 2022
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
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? – MacDailyNews, December 16, 2021
The COVID-19 data is clear: Stop the panic and end the total isolation… A severe economic disruption will very likely provoke the immeasurable costs of widespread unemployment, social isolation, and increased mental health issues, suicide rates, bankruptcies, civil unrest, crime, and war. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2020
There are any number of countries where, prior to this ongoing COVID-19 collective behavior experiment, we could have imagined a compliant population capitulating to the random, illogical, and ever-changing whims of so-called “experts” and ignoramus politicians – actually allowing themselves to be quarantined, locked-down, restricted, put out of business, deprived of family and friends, tagged and tracked, digitally and otherwise, but not America. Obviously, we were wrong.
“The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Pfft. Seemingly just empty words today.
Yes, COVID-19 is real. Yes, COVID-19 is a contagious disease. Yes, COVID-19 can kill, especially those with underlying conditions who should be protected as best as possible. However, the reaction to COVID-19 has clearly been blown out of all proportion and the ramifications of such overreaction will be long-lasting and difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
Those who have lived through this period (in other words, the vast majority of people) and who are still capable of rational thought, will understand implicitly how easily fear and bad data, especially as amplified, massaged, and repeated ad nauseam via mass and social media, can be used to control even so-called “free” people who, it seems, will cede their freedoms en masse with nary a bleat. – MacDailyNews, December 28, 2020
And you thought sheep were herdable animals. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
What’s on earth, Xi Jinping likes to hurt his own people?. Does he want to see his own people suffering?. Why communism likes to punish its own people for nothing?.
I’m curious, are you being rhetorical or do you seriously not know this answer?
Nice to see the reputation Apple is getting, first Elon coming for a visit and now a shift from a very unshiftable shifty character. Imagine that, the whole country locked up, and taking it, until a break out at Apple’s production and low and behold the change follows.