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Remarkable_Soil_6727 t1_j2aqdih wrote

Ban them at least until they've gone though their wave.

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TXTCLA55 t1_j2bey91 wrote

... yeah that doesn't work.

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Kaskako t1_j2cn74q wrote

I’ve played Plague Inc enough to reject your thesis, unless you can explain why? I’m guessing they’d just use a different route? But going through customs leaves stamps on passports?

What covid has shown is that Plague Inc is unrealistic because governments and people seem to be too smart compared to reality.

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TXTCLA55 t1_j2d80fj wrote

You played a game where you have global command control. That doesn't exist in real life and good luck ever trying to make it exist.

0

PurpEL t1_j2bb9nu wrote

A negative test is plenty

−9

Remarkable_Soil_6727 t1_j2bjwcj wrote

Considering many places like hospitals want a test 3 days before you visit shows that the virus can be dormant/undetectable after soon getting it.

People on planes can easily give it to each other and not be picked up by tests.

Luggage and clothing can also contain the virus which may infect them shortly after.

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JeromeMixTape t1_j2d9l96 wrote

It’s not that easy to pass the virus to someone else on a plane due to the way the pressurised cabin works.

0

raspberry-cream-pi t1_j2akpkl wrote

I suppose, at least, it would be helpful to identify any potentially dangerous mutations as early as possible.

Does letting it rip through a billion people increase the chances of mutation, or not since it can spread rapidly and without obstacle?

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ImmortalScientist t1_j2axw8s wrote

Think of every infected person as a new chance for the virus to mutate. There's likely to be tonnes of new variants emerge as a result of the huge surge in China.

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schwinnJV t1_j2cmx2m wrote

Probably closer to every infected cell in every infected person as a new chance, but yeah, not great no matter how you slice it

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closetedpencil t1_j2ehuzb wrote

Isn’t the likelihood of a mutation extremely small though? I’m not saying it’s unlikely here, just wondering since we went through all of 2020 with only two strains of Covid; Delta was in 2021

1

LoucheFigure t1_j2bgzvo wrote

I think the faster the better. Think of it at the extreme end: imagine you could infect all Chinese in one day. You'd have a population with strong natural immunity, and any mutations would have very little chance. The more you space it out, the more chance for mutations to be passed along.

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Anditwashorrible t1_j2cbgio wrote

Hey, instead of downvoting you I figured I would try to explain why this is a bad idea.

  1. Suppose the mortality rate of COVID-19 is 1%. In other words, 1 out of every 100 people who catch COVID-19 dies. This seems like pretty decent odds. But China has 1.4 billion people. If everybody catches the disease, 1.4 billion divided by 100 is 14 million people dead from COVID. This would be a catastrophic death toll, about the lower end of estimates of how many people died in WW1 (16 million to 40 million). If I was running a country, I would want to find a way to protect my population from COVID that doesn't result in millions of people dying. By the way, COVID appears to have a mortality rate of 3-4%.

  2. Herd immunity would not necessarily be conferred against mutations. Mutations are different from the original strain; some are so different that they can evade our body's existing defense systems. This is why as the pandemic continues and more mutant variants arise, pharmaceutical companies are designing new vaccines, because the old vaccines are not as effective against new variants. Your body's immune system is no different. If you caught COVID near the beginning of the pandemic, your immune system would know how to identify and destroy that original strain. But it may not know how to do so against Omicron or any potential future variants, depending on how different they are. In other words, future mutations would still have just as much of a chance of infecting you and producing symptoms.

  3. Immunity does not mean that you cannot catch the disease or are immune to its effects. It means that your body can recognize and destroy the disease if it should enter your body to prevent further infection. But you can still catch and even potentially spread the disease; immunity just makes it very unlikely that you'll develop symptoms or die.

  4. It's important to space out how many people catch a disease at once because every country has a limited amount of hospitals, beds, and doctors. If people don't get adequate care while they are infected with the illness, more people than expected would die. See point 1.

Basically, your idea would result in a lot of dead people and wouldn't be future-proofed. To prevent people from dying from COVID, it would be best to prevent people from catching COVID.

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LoucheFigure t1_j2d0tf7 wrote

Thanks for engaging in a proper argument instead of being a drive-by shooter. I don't want to come across like I'm some covid conspiracist, my comment was simply from the perspective of speculating what might be coming for the rest of the world in light of what is happening -- not what I recommend the Chinese government should ideally have done. From a public health perspective, I agree with flattening the curve, but what's actually playing itself out is closer to "let it rip" after the goverment did an 180-degree turn. In an ideal world they would have taken 3 months to vaccinate the population again with mRNA vaccines bought from the West and taken some other transitory measures, but that's not what happened. In that sense it's a moot point how many people will die because they've already made this decision. It's still worth asking then what it will imply for us in terms of new variants.

Hopefully the death toll will be small, but they're in uncharted waters. Most of the population has already been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines that are still somewhat effective against severe disease, so maybe it'l be less than 1%. On the other hand, with the medical system collapsing it could also be more than 1%. They could have definitely gone for a softer transition, but it's almost as if the government is now wanting to teach the demonstrators a lesson, so they can hold it up as a lesson afterwards "look What happens when you listen to the mob". A lot of old people were never vaccinated simply because they didn't see the need with the constant testing and tight restrictions. Instead of letting it rip, the government could have at least done a big vaccination drive among them, and announced they'd let loose a month later. When you think of it, it's not that crazy that Xi did a hard turn on purpose so he can afterwards save face.

As to your point 2, there is hopefully some cross-variant immunity, but at this point we'll just have to see.

Happy new year!

4

SasquatchSloth88 t1_j2bf5e4 wrote

This is just smart. They infected the world once, and it ruined hundreds of thousands of lives. Now they’re trying to do it again, even worse.

Shut that shit down. They shouldn’t even be able to leave China without negative tests!

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sonstone t1_j29vf4m wrote

And ass swabs?

7

autotldr t1_j29x85i wrote

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 43%. (I'm a bot)

> The UK is set to announce that passengers coming from China will have to provide a negative Covid test before they travel to Britain.

> The UK has become the latest nation to bring in screening for travellers from China after cases surged following Beijing's decision to relax its zero-Covid policy.

> It is understood the UK will demand a negative test before travellers can board a flight from mainland China - bringing Britain into line with the approach taken by the US. While the announcement has not yet been formally made, the UK defence secretary confirmed on Friday that the government was reviewing the need for testing for passengers from China.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: China^#1 test^#2 government^#3 looked^#4 restrictions^#5

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almonster2066 t1_j2ebx62 wrote

Hold them in a room and test each one twice before entry. Cheating mother'fers. DNA tag them as well.

3

etre_be t1_j2a87ga wrote

what's the difference with China being open and the rest of the world being open, as it has for months?

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Lamacorn t1_j2ag2u1 wrote

China is particularly unvaccinated and has been having active covid outbreaks.

Edit: I was wrong, this used to be true, but not anymore ñink

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mrminutehand t1_j2d9zhk wrote

China isn't unvaccinated. China has a serious problem with the elderly population being under-vaccinated which is the most at-risk group, and their vaccines are less effective, but the vast majority of the entire population will have a vaccine and two boosters minimum.

I know because I was in China at the time, and it was mandatory for the majority of people. My wife and I would lose our jobs as teachers if we didn't get the vaccine and all boosters within specific time periods, and in my city at least, you couldn't work a retail job without a vaccine certificate including boosters. For my wife and I it was quite literally a case of "Everyone lines up to get the vaccine today, and anyone without a certificate will not be allowed on the premises tomorrow."

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etre_be t1_j2aikrh wrote

wait, are we still pretending like the shot stops transmission? or like covid isn't going strong in vaccinated countries/states?

−39

NovaFlares t1_j2al7dy wrote

I think it's just due to the sheer number of chinese people with covid it could put huge strain on the already crumbling NHS. Plus having lots of people ill, even if not too serious, isn't good for the society or for the economy

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LoucheFigure t1_j2bi8zx wrote

You can look up infection rates by vaccination status. The CDC has up to date data on that. The more boosted and the more recent, the lower the infection rate. Death rate is almost zero among those with bivalent booster.

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LoucheFigure t1_j2bheav wrote

A plane arrived in Italy this week of which 50% on board tested positive (and the other half most likely by next week)

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ScopeLogic t1_j2d2x67 wrote

I'm sure if we tested every plane everywhere you would also get high numbers.... what are those numbers actually doing this time?

−2

JonnyArtois t1_j2dhvk9 wrote

Everywhere took a big hit with covid cases, they got past that.

China is now doing that, so will take a few months before 'normality'.

1

kingmoobot t1_j2a3z1n wrote

Good. Let's make all counties that support Putin require multiple, exhausting methods for entry

−13