I’m moving my posts from Reddit to Lemmy before delete them.
This post is from 2021-03-06.
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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I'll preface this with saying I understand China probably lied about its numbers. There's no way the zero COVID policy actually resulted in zero COVID.
According to that article, COVID may have resulted in a million deaths in China above the long-term trend line in the last 3 years. This is known as the excess mortality rate, which we can directly compare to other countries even if China lied about COVID mortality (and hey, maybe they did - it would be in their own interests so it’s plausible)
According to this article, since the pandemic began the US’s excess deaths have also sparked sharply even as the COVID mortality rate falls in official government data (sound familiar?) FTA: Since the pandemic began, excess deaths are up by more than 1.25 million in the U.S., about 15% higher than in the pre-pandemic years. That’s worse even when you don’t take populations into account!
Now we can do excess deaths per capita to compare these two policies:
China’s population is notoriously huge, with currently 1.412 billion people living in China. 1 million excess deaths among 1.412 billion people gives us an excess death rate of ~0.07%
America is a much smaller country, with 331.9 million people. 1.25 million excess deaths among 331.9 million gives us an excess death rate of ~0.38%
That means America’s policies were 5x worse on a per capita basis. The zero COVID policy wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than the Let 'er Rip! policy of the rest of the West.
If China had responded as badly as the US and had an excess death rate of ~0.38% then over 5 million people would have died. Zero COVID saved so many lives that Chinese life expectancy actually rose above American life expectancy!
America is the worst of its cohorts, but the rest of the West failed too!
France had 151,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost over 3 million
Germany had 254,000 excess deaths . At that rate China would have lost over 4 million
Britain had 237,000 excess deaths. At that rate China would have lost just under 5 million.
In fairness, China only barely outcompeted South Korea at 42,000 excess deaths - at that rate China would have lost 1.14 million instead of a measly 1 million. That’s still 140,000 lives that were saved because of zero COVID that would have died with the extremely effective South Korean policies.
In conclusion, China is a positive force in the world and I know which side I’m on in the next Cold War.
Pick a side liberals. 😘
Is this a joke???? You are aware that the death toll in China vs other states is not the sole or even biggest reason their government is criticized right? And that for the first, most critical year of the pandemic, America had a president that liberals hated and was HEAVILY criticized. Especially how he handled COVID at literally every step of the way and anyone else who agreed with it. Because you know, it lead to so many deaths.
Ugh can't we go back to the old school edgelords who think they are vampires and wanna drink blood instead of making excuses for fascist governments and movements?
Biden's policies were just as bad! The majority of the deaths occurred after Trump left office!
What policies specifically did biden implement that caused public health saftey? And keep in mind ALL of 2019 trump spent it downplaying the virus in every way conceivable and that other republican lead states and citizens listened to and adopted this. If the start runner does a terrible job it really doesn't matter how well the next person does, they have hurdles no one else has to jump over. Including people believing that the virus is a hoax, masks don't work, vaccines are dangerous, and even more. That's an uphill battle. Context matters. And like China literally boarded up or even welding peoples homes shut without consent to keep them from breaking quarantine.
So yeah I get a little fucking pissed off when some comfortable westerner tries to play devils advocate that an authoritarian state that impacts people I love is some sort of intellectual thought experiment of how could it be better than the very bad USA (which also sucks but for completely different reasons!!!!!!) I noticed you completely skipped over someone else's point that we are free to speak out in America and not really face any consequences but nitpicking some other quotes.
Fuck this shit. I'm seeing so much more pro CCP shit on Lemmy and it is squicking me out. I'm not making this comment to convince you because you have made up your mind and have your own motives for sharing. Here is my movitve for repsoding... anyone reading this don't believe what this person is saying without some critical thought. All the major governments suck right now to some degree. Be wary of anyone telling you that a government that has historically been horrible TO ITS OWN PEOPLE is for some arbitrary reason better than the west (and oh my gosh did everyone collectively forget HK protests and the human rights violations that happend there ?!!)
The government that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other government in the world? How dare they not imprison people and force them into slave labour. There's a reason that the CPC is overwhemingly popular amongst the people.
The government that hasn't been at war with another country in over forty years, and builds railroads and hospitals instead of bombing them? Ask Laos whether the US or China has been better to work with.
It's not really arbitrary reasons, there are a lot of concrete reasons. It's not perfect, they are still working on a lot of things, but most things are constantly improving and it isn't hard to see why people might prefer it.
If you are advocating others use critical thought, I would argue the same. Step outside the "China bad" propaganda for just a second.
Biden had a majority in the House and Senate and he didn't do anything with it to mandate vaccines or masks or social distancing or remote work or anything - worse, he didn't even try. He just continued the same Trump-era policies and waited for the vaccine to fix everything.
I can certainly say it's not all his fault! America is becoming ungovernable and essentially Balkanizing, with fascists passing all sorts of laws to force minorities to flee to other states. Biden isn't superhuman and there's no way he could force this shithole country to stop killing itself.
I'm only saying China is the lesser evil. How can you uncritically bring up Hong Kong protests and not the BLM uprising? Or the fact that America's prison population is comparable to China's despite being dwarfed in size?! America oppresses its own people, think critically!
EDIT Like, fuck, I'm trans in a red state. Am I going to end up in a fucking camp after Trump steals the election?
I made this meme because I got that result in Plague Inc and also China had stopped updating numbers. It's a meme so I wouldn't take it serious.
Interesting nickname btw. :)
I actually wrote that comment out a while back when arguing with someone about zero COVID and wanted to make sure it carried over to this lemmy profile lol
thx btw :3
Everyone's moving out on their ways I guess. :)
To say they lied would be an understatement, and that's probably not all they lie about. Consider my side picked
Better to die free than be lied to, right? 😂
And America definitely hasn't lied at all about its COVID numbers! 🤣
I didn't die though, because I got vaccinated. Why brush off the fact that China is a lying, information-suppressing authoritarian state? Based on the idea they maybe had a lower infection rate
We got lucky with COVID being something we can make a vaccine for - it could have been a lot worse!
I brush off China lying because they definitely, unarguably had a lower infection rate. We know the surplus death rate because they can't hide that, and that's literally the worst the COVID death rate could possibly be. In all likelihood there are other factors that account for surplus deaths during the pandemic, so assuming literally every excess death was from COVID isn't even correct! The numbers are in fact probably better than my rough math, because I was just assuming the worst case scenario for the sake of argument.
China's COVID response was absolutely stellar and saved millions of lives and they should be praised for it. They probably lied (to maintain social cohesion and keep up public support for the extremely effective zero COVID policy) and I don't agree with that choice, but I recognize that they blew everyone else on the fucking planet out of the water even though they were literally ground zero! That's amazing!
Meanwhile, the West sacrificed us all for the money line and also lied. Objectively worse.
Even if you don't think China is good, it's pretty clear they are a lesser evil.
I'm pretty sure a total lockdown in the US would've failed because it's not authoritarian. Pandemics are an area where authoritarian nations have the opportunity to shine because it all comes from the top. Don't like what the government says? Too bad, you're going on lockdown. I have yet to be convinced, however, that this type of consolidated power is ideal in most conditions.
I know you're responding to a tankie, but just to be clear... the US is about as authoritarian as it gets - they don't call it the Prison-Industrial Complex for nothing.
That's due in part to lengthy prison sentences and the war on drugs. I expect those things will improve going forward and it's really not hard to avoid committing crimes. That aside, we get to openly mock our own leaders on public TV. We have local governments that can in many cases override the federal government. And like it or not, we have pretty unrestricted access to just about anything. Power is not centralized here and I like it that way. Much harder for dictatorships to take root. Unfortunately it's also the reason we don't move in lockstep when it matters.
Yeah... it doesn't get any more authoritarian than that.
Doesn't look like it from where I'm standing. I'd say the US is pretty much on a one-way street to more authoritarianism - not less. Or, to put it more accurately, US authoritarianism will start more and more affecting certain groups and classes that have thought themselves free from it up until now - it's like they say... fascism is just colonialism coming home to roost.
US authoritarianism works very differently than the model China is chasing... but that doesn't make it any less authoritarian. China simply doesn't have the ability to "drown out" narratives that pose a threat to the status quo in the way that the US media machine does. No other country except the US can do that - though China is making strides in that department. Once they do, it doesn't matter if a small minority of people knows the truth - a large (and vocal) part of the population has been immunized against it. That's the core characteristic of the US propaganda model.
I don't know where you live but as a US citizen the idea of it being authoritarian is just really funny to me. It's about as libertarian as it gets from what I've seen. If we all decided to decriminalize drugs we could. Weed has come a long way in the last decade and I can only imagine further progress will be made.
I guess we'll see if China's life expectancy stays above America's over the next few years.
2020 to 2021 to 2022, it's gone down every year. Will this year buck the trend? I really hope so! I doubt it.
That's certainly quantifiable if everyone tells the truth. I wish you luck moving there if you don't live there already, but I'll probably stay put for now.
The gap between your conclusion and the rest of your comment is larger than the mariana trench, just because Chana got this right doesn't say anything about almost anything else, and I know the US is awful too but COVID alone is not enpugh to draw a conclusion this big.
Lgbtq acceptance is banned in China.
Can you be more specific as to what you mean? Considering Beijing has a LGBTQ Center, that's not strictly true.
I mean, there are medical centers that specialize in sexual resassignment surgery.
Rights can definitely be better, but I don't see it as being accepting of LGBTQ rights is banned.
Not really, some groups get banned for being anti-Chinese (and usually fronts for US imperialism lol), but I'll grant that the current state of queer rights and acceptance is behind the West. It's mostly kneejerk anti-Western culture war bullshit (that is being inflamed by the US using us as political pawns), but there have been recent moves towards acceptance that I'm hoping lead to more progress on the issue. There are reasons to be optimistic about China's future.
Are there reasons to be optimistic about America at this point?
I'm optimistic about America because the people still have the freedom to speak frankly and critically of their government without fear of imprisonment, torture, or death.
long look at Assange
Except for the Black protesters that keep turning up """mysteriously""" murdered.
This country has a long history of silencing people who speak frankly and critically of the government, especially (but not limited to) when minorities speak out against systemic oppression. They're banning books that talk about those struggles! Surely you see it?
And black people in China are all totally accepted? If not can they protest for acceptance and not get murdered ( unlike the US ) ?
Despite being an extremely diverse country, nobody is going to try to tell you that China has magically solved racism, they haven't. You hear stories like that horrible washing machine ad that went out, but the government also cracks down on things like that. I feel like there is a lot ignorance-based racism as opposed to malice-based racism. Still an issue, but people are usually more willing to change in the former case.
I have black friends that left the US to live in China and I can say that they definitely feel safer. To be totally fair, that's just a few anecdotes and not a wide study or anything like that. I don't think that is exclusive to China though either, I have heard nearly the exact same things from people who have come from the US to my country.
Why make any statements about who has a worse track record when not a single thing China says about their stats is backed up by any facts? Their excess deaths could be 50 million, nobody has a clue. All we know is that they get caught on lies time after time.
The World Bank and the United Nations seem to trust China's raw/crude death rate. That's why, by looking at that death rate, the article I linked was able to find 1 million excess deaths that China isn't reporting as COVID mortality. It's pretty convincing?