Xi’s chickens come home to roost

We’re learning more and more each day about why Xi Jinping was so reluctant to relax the Zero Covid policy: he knew there would be a deluge of Covid cases and deaths as soon as he did that. And while it’s still early, it looks like both Covid cases and deaths are growing rapidly.

The problem with the Zero Covid policy is it worked beautifully in Wuhan, with the original Covid variant. That variant wasn’t anywhere near as transmissible as the current Omicron variants, so it was really possible to stop Covid in its tracks with a brief but severe lockdown. However, it was probably never possible for that strategy to work after the Delta variant hit, and certainly after Omicron.

But Xi didn’t adjust his thinking. Of course, that’s the problem with dictators (and would-be dictators, such as one recently in the US): They get something in their head, and the fact that it worked in the past means it will definitely keep working in the present and future as well. Anyone who cares to disagree with the Great Leader will find him or herself (although I don’t see many she’s in the Chinese political hierarchy) on a one-way trip to nowhere, or even an early death due to acute lead poisoning.

If Xi had had someone talking sense to him, that person would have said, “You’re living in a fool’s paradise, with some of the lowest Covid numbers in the world. Lockdowns are inevitably going to fail sooner or later, given the new variants. You face the choice of A) locking down more of the country for longer and longer time periods (with dissent growing all the time), or B) preparing now for when you’ll be forced to end the Zero Covid policy. Here’s what you should be doing now:

1.      Start buying and administering the mRNA vaccines, which are clearly far superior to our home-grown ones. Sure, China has a crash program to develop their own mRNA vaccine, but do you really want to take the chance that it won’t be ready when you’re forced to end the Zero Covid program?

2.      Greatly expand your emergency room beds, which are going to prove woefully inadequate when there’s a big surge after you relax the policy. Ironically, China got lots of praise for the speed with which we built hospitals in Wuhan in early 2020 – remember the 10-day hospitals? Why can’t we do the same thing now?

3.      You’ve got to kick some asses and get the elderly vaccinated, since the majority of elderly (even people over 80) aren’t vaccinated. If this doesn’t change, this will really push up our deaths numbers once the post-policy wave hits. But this requires solving the first problem, since probably the biggest reason the elderly have resisted vaccination is they don’t trust the homegrown Chinese vaccines (with good reason).

So, which door did Xi choose? He chose Door A, of course. That’s what dictators do – stick with their losing policy, since they know they’ll open the flood gates if they admit they were wrong. And now China will reap the benefits of his wonderful sagacity. Ironically, it may not be the Zero Covid policy that finally cooks Xi’s goose. It may be the ending of that policy that does it. At least, I hope so.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, December 11.

Month	Deaths reported during month/year	Avg. deaths per day during month/year	Deaths as percentage of previous month/year
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April 2020	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May 2020	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June 2020	23,925	798	57%
Month of July 2020	26,649	860	111%
Month of August 2020	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept. 2020	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct. 2020	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov. 2020	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec. 2020	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb. 2021	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March 2021	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April 2021	24,323	811	64%
Month of May 2021	19,843	661	82%
Month of June 2021	10,544	351	53%
Month of July 2021	8,833	287	84%
Month of August 2021	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept. 2021	56,687	1,890	182%
Month of Oct. 2021	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov. 2021	38,364	1,279	77%
Month of Dec. 2021	41,452	1,337	108%
Total 2021	492,756	1,350	158%
Month of Jan. 2022	65,855	2,124	159%
Month of Feb. 2022	63,451	2,266	96%
Month of March 2022	31,427	1,014	50%
Month of April 2022	13,297	443	42%
Month of May 2022	11,474	370	86%
Month of June 2022	11,109	370	97%
Month of July 2022	11,903	384	107%
Month of August 2022	16,199	540	136%
Month of September 2022	13,074	436	81%
Month of October 2022	12,399	400	95%
Month of November 2022	9,221	307	74%
Total Pandemic so far	1,109,851	1,101

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,109,851

Average daily deaths last seven days: 427

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 295

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 101,324,888          

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 461,782 (65,969/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 369,014 (52,716/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.5% (0.4% last week)

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.