China Orders 51 Million into Lockdown as “Covid-Zero” Policy Utterly Fails
Meanwhile, Chinese stocks experienced the biggest plunge since 2008.
I have recorded that American states, as well as many European countries, continue to scrap COVID restrictions after concluding the coronavirus was now an endemic pathogen.
In fact, Iceland’s chief public health officer wanted “as many people as possible” to get infected and enjoy the benefits of natural immunity.
However, China has bitterly clung to the sense its response has been superior and continues to embrace “Covid Zero” policies. As predicted, such an approach is doomed to failure.
The nation’s leaders have now ordered 51 million Chinese into lockdown over the latest covid outbreaks.
Two years on, it’s now sending tens of millions of people into lockdown in the entire northeastern province of Jilin, where 24 million people live, and the southern cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, with 17.5 million and 10 million, respectively.
China, the last major country to relentlessly pursue a Covid-zero policy, reported 1,437 cases across dozens of cities on Monday. That’s a fourfold jump in a week.
Although record case numbers are testing the resilience of China’s no-tolerance approach, there is no sign the country is willing to pivot to ‘living with the virus.”
China is also imposing travel restrictions and mass testing after the latest flare-up, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which has resulted in a spike of….asymptomatic cases.
Zhang Yan, a Jilin health commission official, conceded that the response from local authorities had been lacking.
“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not robust enough,” he said at a press briefing on Sunday.
“There is insufficient understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant… and judgment has been inaccurate.”
Personally, I wish China all the success that it deserves in this endeavor.
Interestingly enough, in the wake of this development, there has been the biggest plunge in Chinese stocks since 2008.
Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong had their worst day since the global financial crisis, as concerns over Beijing’s close relationship with Russia and renewed regulatory risks sparked panic selling.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index closed down 7.2% on Monday, the biggest drop since November 2008. The Hang Sang Tech Index tumbled 11% in its worst decline since the gauge was launched in July 2020, wiping out $2.1 trillion in value since a year-earlier peak.
The broad rout follows a report citing U.S. officials that Russia has asked China for military assistance for its war in Ukraine. Even as China denied the report, traders worry that Beijing’s potential overture toward Vladimir Putin could bring a global backlash against Chinese firms, even sanctions. Sentiment was also hurt by a Covid-induced lockdown in the southern city of Shenzhen, a key tech hub, and the northern province of Jilin.
Smart companies have taken the past 2 years to remove China from the supply chain. Those that have not are likely to feel the effects of continued covid lockdowns and other crises arising in that nation.
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A million here, a million there and pretty soon you are talking real people.
‘ If they would rather die, they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population ‘
Planned parent/hood. One-child/selective-child. Choose your wicked solution.
The Covid-Zero fantasy was an epic failure of global proportion, and it illustrates the fallacy in thinking centralized control by “the experts” will make our lives better. It will not, it will inevitably result in tyranny.
Non-sterilizing vaccines, evolutionary pressure, animal reservoirs, and cargo cult mandates.
The impact on supply chains downstream of a China lockdown while the rest of the world is opening up will give everyone a glimpse of how dependent we have chosen to become.
Labor and environmental arbitrage, democratic gerrymandering, insourcing, outsourcing, and broken chains are a progressive process and an outrageous epiphany (sarcasm intended).
ICYMI – Covid killed 5000 part global supply chains. The future belongs to those who can Co-locate their manufacturing. Look for North America to blossom as Trump’s USMCA integrates us further. The US will do high end manufacturing and design. Mexico will do low and mid level manufacturing. And, Canada will be the king of raw materials.
In the last 4 years 7 million jobs have been re-shored from Asia to North America. That is the future.
Let’s hope so for all our sake. Some large and very influential corporations retain the majority of their suppliers, component production and manufacturing in China. I am not convinced that the globalist set running our corporations have fully committed to MAGA as you imply; see Tim Cook of Apple.
It will be very entertaining to see how these same global corporations respond to China and it’s next foray v India. Will they leap to enact the same sort of independent, self imposed sanctions on China as they have to Russia? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Guess that total lockdown didn’t give you heard immunity.
China also has a problem with nutrition: there are many people short on selenium, zinc, and D.
I would like to know what smart companies removed china from the supply chain?
This isn’t new for China. This is what happens when you have a dictator and his small group of toadies insulated in a bubble totally disconnected from the feedback of the people they are making decisions for.
They did this previously with the so-called Great Leap Forward.
Mao decided that farmers produced a certain amount of food that was totally disconnected from reality, and dispatched his thugs to confiscate food quotas from the farmers.
Instead of telling Mao that his projections were ludicrous, at EVERY LEVEL, the party thugs simply filled the quotas and left the peasants to starve – or the slightly better off ones literally had to BUY BACK the food that had been confiscated so they wouldn’t starve.
It took tens of millions of dead peasants in the single biggest famine in human history for the information to finally penetrate to Mao and for him to finally reverse the directives (of course never once admitting that he was wrong).
That’s exactly what’s happening here.
To the insulated elites in the Inner Party in China, COVID is still the Black Plague. No amount of actual data matters, and nobody dares question them. So while the rest of the world has functionally gotten back to normal with the exception of a few insane liberal holdouts, China is still locking down tens of millions of people at a time to absolutely no benefit.
And mark my words, it will continue for years to come.
It’s call “demand-side economics”.
Well
Of it continues in China for years maybe our supply chain will come back to our shores
Seeing as how the CCP still doesn’t have their engineered virus under control in their own country perhaps it’s time for the Biden regime to revoke all travel to and from China until such time as control is demonstrated.
China’s rulers think nothing of imprisoning and persecuting its citizens. Why is this any different? Just another excuse to torment the citizenry.
Proof positive that the Blue lockdown states crushed their economy and people to no avail, and the Red freedom loving states got it right.
Want to see real inflation: wait until Covid (or Covid policies) shut down the supply chain. It’s Biden’s next excuse. Give it a week.
IMO this ‘lockdown’ is more appropriately called a lockout.
It has nothing to do with Covid and everything to do with putting (more) inflationary pressure on the markets by cutting supply.
If it’s asymptomatic, it isn’t a case.