lol. He'll be forcing a vote? Minority party nobody can force a vote? Gonna be kinda hard to do without 51 votes.
It's not mild. It's "mild" once vaccinated or with prior infection. Overall, HK has ~6k covid death (almost all in this Omicron wave) which is miles behind the ~1M covid death here and 100's thousand death in most EU countries. Hong Kong faces its pandemic peak - New Statesman Hong Kong is experiencing the highest confirmed Covid-19 death rates for any large country or region throughout the entire pandemic. The weekly rolling average hit 255 deaths a day on 10 March, which, for a city of roughly 7.5 million people, is a rate of 33.7 deaths per million per day. This is the highest figure on record for any territory with a population of more than one million people. The UK’s highest recorded figure throughout the pandemic was a rate of 18.3 deaths per million people, recorded during the height of the January 2021 peak. Hong Kong is a densely populated city that has, until now, had comparatively low numbers of Covid-19 cases and was pursuing a "dynamic zero" Covid-19 policy under the instruction of mainland China. This has left the population of Hong Kong vulnerable due to low levels of infection-acquired immunity. It has also resulted in vaccine hesitancy among more vulnerable residents with only 50 per cent of those aged 70 and above having received two or more vaccine doses according to the government. Cases have begun to fall in the past two days, but because hospital admissions and deaths lag behind infection numbers worse may still be to come for the city in the next fortnight.
A very odd and unfortunate phenomenon that older Chinese people are less likely to get the shot than young, If I was over 50 without a vaccine I'd be scared shitless
They prob dont trust China's vaccine which is supposedly ~75% effective. People here b**** about "free" untested/experimental vaccines dont really know how sus lower tier vaccines really are. They take for granted it "mostly works" but are afraid of one in 50 million complications.
I'm a bit more surprised at the high rate of vaccination under 60... I read it's due to a combination of things Mistrust of Chinese gov and believe that it's not effective (Sinovax). Misinformation on severe side effects of Western vaccine (BioNTech). Until now, there was no severe outbreak so there hasn't been a good realization of the impact to older folks and the HK gov has had a cautious tone about vaccination (check with your dr instead of go vaccinate). Now, they are scrambling to increase vax rate.
They received more astrazenica than biontech. Main reason was because no one in the states wanted it and Europe was still creeped out by its reported rare complications. That vax also had success rates similar to Sinovax. Maybe not the most confidence inducing for old folks.
Talking to family in HK most of the vaccine they have available are the Biontech / Pfizer and the two PRC vaccines Sinovax and Sinopharm. This latest wave in HK is very unsettling given how well they have done before and just shows how dangerously contagious Omicron is. It also shows that the policy of zero infection doesn't work. It's almost impossible to contain.
Sweden is looking best now in terms of excess mortality. Natural immunity. Places like Hong Kong just dragged out the inevitable.
Dragging it out was fine if you got people immunized with the good stuff. When you stop "dragging it out" from diminishing returns is always debatable. Swedes were naturally responsible and already had a habit of social distancing.
The best stuff to get all the non-vulnerable people immunized is Omicron. 50+ and immuno-compromised, must get the vax.
That sounds reasonable but I don't know how you coordinate that in dense Asian cities. Omicron is contagious af. Most of those governments are even tighter on control.
Bro that’s what the most respected physician I know said ( I agreed), but I’m still paying for this long covid. I may be a small minority of people thoguh most ppl are good
Focused protection. Basically what the scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration said all along. They were right from the beginning.
They declared it before vaccines were even in play. It's a bit revisionist to declare victory with all the dead and exhausted healthcare workers/resources. Each strain also had its own characteristics. I dont know about Europe but the US faced critical health shortages with anti-vaxxers clogging up ERs. It became a war of attrition where other treatment like elective surgery, cancer therapy, or daily visits were all cut short or delayed for months. I'd rather err on safety with novel viruses than ripping off some metaphorical bandaid. The reason people suffer from long covid is because the virus went to town all over the body without triggering an immune response. But they're not part of the body count, so all is well and good... So I was fine with the intial drive to flatten the curve. The goal was clear (reduce healthcare strain) and the numbers were visible. What I had a problem with was when this became a business as usual routine without goals and a diluted mission shrouded as an emergency level threat. Once vaccines were distributed, the game shifted. It shifted when Delta happened. It shifted again with Omicron. I wonder if you're okay with people infecting themselves with Delta. Maybe it's not as bold a declaration because that's what red states went through late last year as they plowed through stockpiles of Ivermectin. I really dont see the point in trying to be right on hot takes made during Alpha.
I was fine with trying to flatten the curve when we all had no data. The more I learned, the more I realized that Sweden was right all along. As to your question if I am okay with people infecting themselves with Delta: Yes, in those countries where everyone in the vulnerable groups could have been vaccinated by that time. And in other countries, natural immunity was probably already higher.
Seems early on lockdowns were effective in saving lives and preventing hospital systems from being overwhelmed. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0258205#sec024
Sweden's covid death rate and estimated excess mortality rate is significantly higher than all of its Nordic neighbors. I don't understand how they could be touted as right all along when its bordering countries prevented many more deaths with no inclination that they will be catching up anytime soon. There also isn't any significant difference in GDP hit amongst the Nordic countries (outside of Iceland getting hit the hardest). It would seem to me others had it "more right" no? More people got infected in Sweden before the vaccine became available in comparison to other Nordic countries, large in part due to their government's decisions regarding restrictions, and it seems likely because of that, a lot more people died prematurely than they otherwise would have with similar restrictions in place. And the ultimate comparisons to restriction effectiveness will show in Australia and New Zealand over these next couple of months, and It's ultimately a question of vaccine effectiveness at this point. Hong Kong is pretty different to comp with west countries, as their elderly population has low vaccine rates, which were mostly the Chinese vax right?
