Coronavirus and You - Page 583

On February 05 2022 16:05 Slydie wrote:
With the Olympic Games opening, I am very curious about what China's endgame for this pandemic is. For how long can they keep locking themselves in?

On February 05 2022 16:08 Sermokala wrote:

They don't really care. The people have no rights and the government sees it as a sign of strength to listen to science.

On February 05 2022 10:09 Jockmcplop wrote:

I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it. I'm saying the consequences could be alot worse than people are currently seeing. Generally speaking, I accepted the lockdown.
However, the way decisions were made and communicated needs looking at, because i think alot of people knew about the mental health consequences of lockdown, but didn't really seem to want to talk about it much. Sure, there were some articles on news sites, but there wasn't a huge drive during lockdown to help these kids, because no-one was clearly told 'this is going to affect the mental health of vulnerable kids and something needs doing about it'.
The people in charge of enacting lockdown were far too busy defending and redefending their decisions - mostly due to the toxic political climate - to worry about the negative consequences of them, and how to mitigate them.


Alot of us have been begging governments to take mental health more seriously for a very long time!

I think there needs to be more data and studies into this problem, because the lack of understanding of your average person about mental health conditions and how they work leads to people not realizing how destructive this kind of situation can be.

I would like to know what age range this is affecting. Bear in mind that once someone has a mental health crisis, they are likely to repeat that crisis later in life and struggle with mental health for the rest of their lives.

If we are seeing double the amount of mental health crises now, for kids of a range of ages, then that is going to continue, which is going to lead to huge difficulties for mental health systems across the world for years to come.

I think in the UK, this affords an opportunity for Labour to do what the tories could never do and implement serious mental health reforms, because the system we have here (like in most places the world over) is not fit for purpose.

I wonder how governments are going to react to this news as it keeps on coming. Will they try to minimize or discredit it in order to stick by their decisions, or will they actually do something about it?

On February 06 2022 02:19 JimmiC wrote:

Pretty sure the police showing up at your door if your say anything even remotely non positive about government, or were born of the wrong race/religion to put you in "reeducation camps" is a lot worse for mental health. Unlike the people in western democracies crying about being in a dictatorship because they have to show their vaccination OR negative test to eat a movie, all while blasting who ever on facebook, the Chinese people are living it for real and that is really really bad for mental health.

On February 06 2022 14:44 RKC wrote:
Asian countries, nationally and regionally, are self-sustainable. Maybe more so than some Western countries. Due to natural resources, bigger population, and close trade ties with each other (and other like minded developing nations in South America and Africa). China is less dependent on global trade and supply chain than USA (or at least, have been steathily building a comparable international network with other developing nations via soft power diplomacy).

The only thing Asia will lose out from isolation is luxury consumer goods. Tech gadgets and infrastructure? No worries, Samsung and Huawei says hello. Online retail? Super apps like WeChat are way ahead of Whatsapp. Lifestyle? TikTok!

Hollywood has been peddling hazmat suits in zombie and viral outbreak movies since forever. Don't know about the science exactly, but people in Asia feel more safe with such precautions anyway. What the West see as a bleak dystopian society ala Big Brother, we see as safe modern living. To each their own.

Asia is very much alive and kicking. Thanks for asking. But safe your sympathies for elsewhere.

On February 06 2022 19:05 Slydie wrote:


Bigger populations is a key point. Closing off borders in Europe will break up a lot more families and mess up business relations than closing off a large Asian country. But there are a bunch of Asian students in the west, for example.

On February 06 2022 20:39 RKC wrote:


So true. That's why it's difficult, economically and socially, for many Western countries to close borders and implement strict lockdowns. Australia and NZ being remote islands are the exception (Canada is arguably similar in terms of remoteness).

What works for Asia may not work well for the rest of the world, and vice versa.

P.S. Mental health is always a problem in modern Asian societies (China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc) due to the highly competitive nature of education and work. Definitely the problem has worsened because of COVID (just like many other preexisting societal problem). But it's a trade-off in a society that values productivity and grit. Such countries wouldn't have developed in such rapid pace in the last century without such cultural mindset. Of course, it's a problem that shouldn't be swept under the rug. But it's a problem that transcends beyond COVID with no easy solution.

On February 07 2022 00:13 Sermokala wrote:

That's not how Canada works. It's sitting right next to the USA there and most of the population is south of the continental United States northern border.

On February 07 2022 12:10 RKC wrote:


Canada only shares a land border with US. And vast oceans seperate its coast from other countries.

Canada is more isolated than, say, Germany or Spain.

On February 07 2022 12:10 RKC wrote:


Canada only shares a land border with US. And vast oceans seperate its coast from other countries.

Canada is more isolated than, say, Germany or Spain.

On February 08 2022 10:09 Sermokala wrote:

By that argument china is isolated because most of it's population is separated by the coast, mountains, taiga, or north Korea.

On February 08 2022 13:11 RKC wrote:


Precisely. And that's why China has been extremely self-reliant historically, and will be able to cope better than other societies with a zero-COVID policy for long periods. Which answers the original question that prompted this line of conversation (how long can China lock themselves from the rest of the world?).

On February 08 2022 13:51 Sermokala wrote:

That answers nothing about the question. China is wildly reliant on outside trade to survive. It can't feed itself, which is why it allows it's fishing fleet to rape the worlds oceans, it can't power itself, which is why it has to import so much coal despite its own production and pretences of green energy, and it can't live with itself due to the great shames it's suffered over the centuries.

It is actively making all these things worse with all the debt and pollution that it relies on to grow it's economy.


But the real answer is that they don't care about opening up because the government answers to no one and the virus is just another excuse for them to opress their people and distract from their genocide.