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China has only approved domestic vaccines, which aren't massively useful against omicron. Also the super-old are very skeptical about the government AND western medicine, even more so than in HK, so getting them vaccinated (even with the shitty vaccines we have here) is a huge ask. In fact, when vaccines were launched here, the over 60s weren't allowed to be vaccinated as it was deemed too risky. I wouldn't want to be in charge right now as the options are death rates like HK's if they can't control the outbreak or controlling the outbreak by locking 25m people into their homes (and destroying the economy). So stupid as they could have vaccinated EVERYONE with effective vaccines (and done a lot of public education) in the last 2 years and just didn't - so we have unvaccinated old people spitting at testing sites and people spraying bleach into the air.
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hats
@Mr_Smyth
that’s insane, especially as now (with omicron) it’s vaccination that’s key especially in older age groups and the focus should be on that.
If there is no base of previous infections then it’s either stay locked down forever or vaccinate/boost and nearly everyone will get it but with relatively low death rates*
NZ kept it out and vaccinated nearly everyone, they have some of the highest case rates ever as no background immunity from infection but low deaths but they opened up knowing it was pointless trying to contain it forever.
HK had similar infection levels but too many deaths due to old people not getting vaccinated.
if they can force people to stay at home then they can compulsory vaccinate old people.
i hope for your sake they sort this out soon.
*in a highly vaccinated population with therapeutic treatment available the fatality rate for covid has now reached parity or is just below that of influenza having been 22x higher at the beginning of the pandemic.