“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

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They get shit on for focusing so hard on zero-covid policy that alternative plans like vaccine drives were not prioritized. Now the government suddenly ended zero-covid policies without having said vaccinations in place and you have a huge undervaccinated population vulnerable in place.

Some of the big issues facing China:

• Sinovac vaccine is less efficient than western vaccines, most Chinese citizens only got 1-2 shots (sinovac needs 3 shots, with last being done recently for 80-90ish% protection vs severe disease)

• Extremely limited number of intensive care beds per 1000 citizens and China did not build this capability up in past two years due to belief in zero-covid.

• Sinovac halted or heavily reduced production of covid vaccine shots. Usage of foreign vaccines is utter anathema to the CCP.

All these issues mean that China was not ready to fully open up within a week. It's like the CCP panicked and failed to do due diligence. Had they done this over 3-12 months (depending on vaccine drive) then things would be a lot more manageable.

Edit: Had to remove a point about state media and their agenda because Reddit shadowbans it. If interested I recommend checking up on recent economist article that discusses the downsides of it.

Because both of those are the wrong answer. The solution was always vaccination, but they've made extensive mistakes over the long term with that. Zero COVID was always deranged, but people shouldn't need to risk being infected with diseases by health care workers who are known to be sick.

Bozo material.

They shit on them for being super hard on lockdowns but this article is them shitting on the fact they are allowing covid positive people to work at a hospital.

Because its a massive contradiction and a bigger health risk if a nurse has covid and is interacting with staff and patients.

Both parts are stupid for their own reasons