China’s 'Covid Tsunami'

As we talked about on the show the other day, that China spy balloon the U S shotdown is about the only China related story making headlines right now, especially as news develops that China's balloon surveillance program was more widespread than anyone new and we'll continue to follow that story, but as China tries to contain the fallout from that incident overseas at the same time as trying to contain another problem at home, a wave of COVID cases that

overwhelmed the country. You may remember in December, Chinese citizens protested in the streets against the government straight COVID zero lockdowns, and soon after President Jijim Pain relaxed the restrictions and China has begun to reopen. People are out and about again, but is feared. That's also meant a staggering spike in

COVID cases throughout China. More than a billion people are believed to have been infected, and it's put an enormous strain on China's health system, which hasn't been able to keep up. My colleagues John Lou in Beijing and Shiad Zubung in Singapore joined me now to talk about how China is coping with so many sick people all at once. John, let me start with you. The last time you were on this program in November, it was that the height of the protests against the COVID zero lockdowns, and you

said three things were likely to happen. The first was that the protests would subside, they wouldn't become more widespread. That the Chinese government, which has a history of responding to social unrest, would likely ease the lockdowns, and that if that happened, there would be a wildfire of COVID cases across the country. And all three of those things fairly quickly came true. Can you now just say exactly what's happening now in Beijing and other cities now that

COVID has spread so far so fast. Well, we saw a huge uptick in infections widespread throughout the country, lots of disruption. As a result of that, we had a big increase in deaths across the country, specifically among the elderly. We've seen cases where hospitals have impact with people who are sick looking for care, a shortage of medicines. Unfortunately, very very busy at crematoriums and funeral homes across the country.

That that was sort of the situation we had in late December early January, China reported about sixty deaths for the month through January twelve. There was almost thirteen deaths in a week in early January. Since then, though, towards the end of the month end of January, the number of affections seems to have peaked. It seems to have plateaued. It started to come down, the same with deaths, the same with critical cases, and now the government is trumpeting

that the worst is over. One of the statistics that really kind of made my eyes pop was that an official announced that eighty percent of Chinese citizens had been infected with COVID. This was right before the lunar New Year's celebration. That just seems like an astonishing figure. I mean, the wave really took over China at a huge scale. We call it a tsunami of COPE cases really just

swept over China. I think the main reason why the COPE virus southern spreading so dramatically across the countries because partly because the government hasn't really done anything substantial to prepare the public for the crisis. I mean, it didn't vaccinate enough people, especially the elderly. It didn't really tell people to stock up on on the medicine to do

sort of cater to to the infections as well. And also it really testifies to the fact that omicron is just impossible to be keep up, you know, with with the traditional lockdown methods, and now that the lockdown has gone, it was just impossible to keep the virus at bay.

One really surprising thing too, are these stories of Chinese citizens who have had to go into online chat rooms asking people if they had the most basic things I view profen COVID testing kits, and they were relying on strangers to send them things from their own medicine cabinets.

Why did the government not have these just very very common things available so was I think part of the reason that happened was the change from being a country that was determined to snuff out every single case of COVID flipping so quickly to one where everything was open. You know that they were gonna let COVID just run through the popular That change was so quick it caught everybody off guard, caught the population off guard, it caught

doctor's off guard, it caught pharmacies off guard. There was a sudden surge in demand for medicines and there just wasn't that supply. Do you think that the government, looking at this problem of lifting COVID, had to make the calculation that there was no real way to contain it, and so that they simply were going to have to accept a huge surge people across the country getting sick in large numbers, many people dying in order to get

through it. I think that was part of it, Just that omicron, especially the latest variants, were so infectious that the old playbook of lockdowns and mass test it just

wasn't as effective. And I think the government sort of took a hard look, and if you there were protests, people were getting sick, people were upset by the lockdowns, that ultimately the calculation cost benefit was that it was better to open up, because I think the worst thing that could have happened was to continue the lockdowns but still for thousands, millions of people to get sick and then still to have people die and so to have the worst of both worlds, and I think that was

what finally pushed, you know, the decision making to open up. It's about John mentioned earlier that it looks like the number of deaths is actually coming down, that the illness has spread so quickly through the country that the people who are going to get sick largely have. But there's been a lot of questions about how accurate the reporting of the number of deaths has been because of the

way the government records deaths. Can you explain a little bit about that, Yes, So the government has been very careful in terms of counting COVID deaths. Definition is pretty narrow, limiting it to you know, those dies of COVID only. And and at the same time, when releasing our death related data, the government has also specified that it is

only referring to deaths that occurred at the hospital. So so a death that happened in someone's household would then be necessarily counted into the totally because the goble wouldn't have a way to do, you know, to see into the data. That that is sort of the government acknowledging that you know, it's it's data is is not that complete when it comes to this solid picture, which is why we need to rely at times on social media

for reports on infections and deaths as well. And and I think from our observations on social media, it does seem like the way that's sort of you know, taped off, and deaths is not are not occurring as often as as during the initial WAF John did we see higher death rates in China, especially in areas where there were fewer vaccines available than we did in other parts of the world. So I think this is partly the data

to blame. We just don't have the amount of clarity to be able to definitively say whether or not the rate of deaths was higher or lower. Trying to show some transparency after pressure from the World Health Organization, the US and others, but because of the way they have handled starter up till now, there's definitely always a question mark, particularly around these claims that so much of the population an official saying at the weekend of the population has

been affected. I've I'm very skeptical of these numbers. Zibung to make up for shortages of healthcare and medicine, especially in rural areas of China. There's a citizens movement that sprung up called the Campaign to Breathe in Down Fever

in Villages. What is that right? Um? So the campaign that you mentioned, the Campaign to bring down Fever in Villages is actually a grassroots action started by China Civil Society really to sort of you know, coordinates medical supplies and couple ship them to the countryside where these sort of supplies a more acute and so so there are

really two things that they are going on here. Wonder is that you know, some villagers are also being affected in the first wave and the government didn't really step in at the point in time. It really just took a backseat on the whole situation. And that's led to a lot of these grassroots initiatives to cut stepping and have like take charge and coordinates supplies and to ship

them to the people in need. And then when when when this first waves tapered off and we are you know, in the running up to the lunar New Year, that's when the government find the kids that is stuff and say that okay, you know what with all of these travelers going back home, they are bound to bring virus home with them as well. And that's when the government really started to pay more attention to the country side and launching more sort of top down matches to ramp

up the health care face capacities in these villages. And that's where we see that the government has some you know, given villages oximeters and the anti paractics and stuff. John In these widespread protests at the end of last year, people were angry. They wanted an immediate end to COVID zero lockdowns, and they got them. Of course, we've been talking all about the downside of opening up so quickly

without preparation. How have people responded to this? You know, the government did what they asked, and now there are the consequences had people been patient accepting of what happened here. I mean, I think China's a lot like you know, the U S and many other parts of the world where the public opinion is quite a split on the issue. There are there are lots of people working, age people, people who have businesses who are really happy that the

economy has reopened. We've just had the Lunar New Year Festival, which is the most important holiday in China, and many people were able to go home to see family for the first time in many years because there are no longer these restrictions on travel internally. But at the same time, we talked about the larger number of deaths that we've seen across the country. That's obviously impact of families all over.

And we have actually seen some criticism online, people saying, you know, people who didn't want to open up or were against opening up, saying blaming these debts on those who protested, saying, look look what that's gotten us. And so there is this balance between you know, pro and con people who opposed and people who supported the reopening.

But I think looking forward, if you listen to the government spin on the way on what's happening, you will see that there is much more of an emphasis on the economy, rebounding growth, returning people getting back to work, job prospects for the for the young, the newly graduated, and I think that will be the emphasis going forward. John Subunk, please stay with me. Our conversation continues after

the break. We just a couple of days ago on this show talked about how China's economic reopening is going to give a big boost to the world economy and also possibly increase inflation because of increased demand from China. What are the sort of pains associated with reopening very

quickly after three years amid a wave of COVID. Saw the initial stage of the recovery was that, you know, the economy really to cough, you know, affect three operations were being disrupted by all of these cofee cases as well. But now that's you know, hopefully the first wave is well behind us, and and and China kind of like kickstart to all of these progrowth policies once again, including a surprise easing on the crackdowns on tech firms and

property sector. That could point us to a stronger rebounding the coming months, although that again is subjected to you know, where the COVID will kind of like spring up again and disrupting all of these operations. If you walk through say, cities in Western Europe or the United States, when people kind of emerged from the darkest days of COVID, you saw so many shops, so many restaurants had not made

it through and they were closed permanently. Are we seeing a similar thing in China cities that people are coming out after three years and looking around and so many businesses that they once went to are no longer they. I mean, definitely some shops have folded after this you know, on and off sort of lockdown situation that China was

doing in the past three years. But on the other hand, is important to note that Chinese COVI zero wasn't like a consistent soft lockdown mode being imposed on the whole country. It was really, you know, depends on the COVID situation in the particular city, in the particular districts. Even in some cases otherwise when there's no copy cases, people are really living just as normal and sometimes they don't even need to wear a mask in ourdoors. And businesses were

allowed to operate. But it's really that sort of on and off lockdown with the events of Omicron that makes the whole business operations unsustainable. John is the sort of I guess social contract between the Chinese people in the government that they accept one party rule a lot of restrictions in exchange for companty in government, good public services, protection, public safety. Has that been shattered a bit, our people expressing kind of discontent in a way that maybe they

didn't before. I think it has definitely been stressed by the situation. It's been put under greater stress that compact, the social compact, but I think it was under a

lot of stress during the lockdowns. I mean, we saw the protests, We saw the impact on the economy, We saw the high rates of youth unemployment that that hadn't existed in decades in China, and that I think ultimately would have produced more stress on that that compact between the government and society than what what we're going through right now, which is obviously the deaths, the critical illnesses are have had a huge impact on families across the country.

But we do seem to be over the peak of that. The economy is coming back, and so I think over the next months, over the next year, the government is going to be able to spend the story, you know, to say, look, what we did was the best thing, and ultimately we came out through the other side into

a better place. And John before COVID President Ji Jimping, who had solidified his power and was making very sweeping changes in Chinese society, had really started to crack down on forms of protest, descent free expression then had happened before. Our people now finding that they're able to criticize a little bit more as a government's sort of like, you know, allowing a little bit more room to dissent just to

avoid pressure building up. I think the government is quite sophisticated and how it manages sort of social what people were talking about, the general discussion around the country. And so for example, when we had so many people upset about the lockdowns, there was it seemed an allowance, a greater allowance for people to criticize that, to voice their upset nous. Since then, that has again tightened very noticeably.

We we've had reports of many of the those who participate in the protests, people who helped sort of drum up attention for the protests, being detained by the police. So I don't think there is in the greater sense, any relaxation of how tightly controlled public opinion is in China.

That being said, I think the government is really sensitive to to making changes sort of course correction when it has to to make sure that people are not you know, are not being pushed to an extreme when it comes to what they think about the government, what they think about policy, what they're undergoing in their lives, and so you know, in in that respect, I don't think much has changed really We'll be right back. M h. It's aboon.

One way it's possible to get a feel for public sentiment in China is from the conversations that are happening on social platforms. Are there any trends in what people are talking about now with all the tunnel in the

country that stand out to you? So? Um, what we've been seeing is that some people are really just sort of pushing the blame on the protesters or in general logic generally the people have called for a relaxation of coffee matches, and I've actually chanced upon this wayboard topics of way boards China's equivalence of Twitter, So I've actually chanced upon this wayboard discussion consisting a bunch of people sort of asking for a return of COVID zero or

at least some degree of lockdowns because they were seeing that, you know, the wave was just too two two huge, and the tow was just too great for for them

to to be able to understand. And I think that really speaks to the whip lash that just take COVID zero UTN has created on the Chinese society, you know, because they were unable to sort of understand why the government has taken such a dramatic change all of a sudden, and that's why they was they just couldn't fathom in that they were, you know, covlet putting the blame on any other parties, that they thoughts they were responsible, and that in this case, how the protesters can I just

add to what the Bones saying in the sense that because the government censors social media posts that are critical of government policy, posts that blame the government for the increase in death, because those posts tend to get censored away, what you have left instead is this discussion of, well, it's the protesters who are to blame for the fact that so many people have died, and so either by by coincidence or by purpose, that tends to be the

discussion that is more pronounced than China, the one that we see more often. It's about one thing that I think you spoke to Frederica about before the interview, when the two of you were talking, was about just misinformation in general, people online looking at using yoga or alternative medicine to cure COVID, and how those discussions are going about how that's different from Western disinformation. The idea that

you know COVID doesn't even exist. Yeah, I mean that really boils down to how the government has vilified COVID nine team. For the past three years. You know, the government has been telling its people that COVID nighteing is a very serious disease because a lot of symptoms in the people, and and and sometimes long COVID is there to stay as well. And so when when the government just suddenly opens up, we fought, you know, sort of

educating the public about about about the variance. Really that has driven some people to sort of treats the virus as a very serious thing to look after. And and at the same time, there's also this erosion of trust in the government, you know, um or at least in the government's backs sort of medical experts. They don't really

trust that the experts were speaking out of science. They think that the experts were just being directed by the government to however line that the government was was looking at at the point in time. So so now they think that, you know, the experts words are not to be trusted. And that's also driven them to this sort of alternative information. And and we are seeing that the people's Dady that is the mouthpiece of the Communist Party has to come out and clarified to the people that

eat encant pictures doesn't really help you with COVID niting symptoms. John, when you look down the road three months, six months, even a year from now, how do you see this plane out? Where do you think China is with COVID in the future. I think in six months time, it could very well be that COVID just seems like it

never happened, It didn't exist. People. Maybe people privately amongst themselves will talk about it, but you know, in official media and mass media more broadly there there might just be no mention of it. That the government will want to very much move forward. And you know, I do think that the economy should be much better down the road. Obviously, partly that will be because last year was so terrible that will just make this year look much much better

and that will add to that argument. So I think in six months and a year from now, you know, it will have seemed like thousands of years ago that this happened. John Deebung, thanks so much for being here. Thank you West, Thank you. You can read more from Shia Zebung and on lou at Bloomberg dot com. Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's

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