What is China's plan to come out of lock-down?

[juddles]

Hi all, yet another thread for Coronavirus:

It appears, on the figures available, that China has managed to almost completely stop the spread of CV within its borders. An amazing achievement, especially given that they are such a densely populated country. And almost certainly something that was only achievable due to their tight control of the masses.

But what is their next step? Staying in lock-down mode must be economically catastrophic.

With CV now racing around the world, the only way I can see China maintaining any control is to maintain the lockdown, or eventually, to open its borders and allow foreigners back in. Which will bring an influx of new "spot fires".

Can anyone see how they can return to anywhere approaching normal trade and commerce before a vaccine is invented? Does this mean that China will be economically stuffed for 6 mths to a year or more?

 

[Cossie]

Sorry Juddles, I for one do not believe anything that comes out of the official PRC news channels.
They have been very economical with the truth on so many occasions, why should we really believe what they are sprouting now?

 

[juddles]

Sorry Juddles, I for one do not believe anything that comes out of the official PRC news channels.
They have been very economical with the truth on so many occasions, why should we really believe what they are sprouting now?

I agree with your scepticism - totally. But they do also appear to have managed an extreme lock down. If they did not have the lock down, their cases should be approaching about 10,000,000 given the usual mathematics - something I think even they would struggle to conceal?

 

[moa999]

Saw this in the SMH today.. back on track

As the rest of the world shuts down, China is ramping up

China's economy is expected to grow at 4.8 per cent in 2020, its worst result in three decades. Its recovery is key to helping Australia avoid a recession.

www.smh.com.au

 

[Mogul]

Most of the factories are back up and running. The roadblocks are the supply chains internally in China, which can take a couple of months to get back to normal.

Getting stuff out of the country is hapenning at a reasonable rate albeit at a highly inflated cost thanks to the shipping companies.

 

[juddles]

Saw this in the SMH today.. back on track

As the rest of the world shuts down, China is ramping up

China's economy is expected to grow at 4.8 per cent in 2020, its worst result in three decades. Its recovery is key to helping Australia avoid a recession.

www.smh.com.au

Interesting commentary in that article. But perhaps to me the most true line was "The reality is the virus will have a long tail in China, as it will around the world. "

So they are down to just 15 new cases per day? I just can't really believe that, even though it would be nice.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

"

So they are down to just 15 new cases per day? I just can't really believe that, even though it would be nice.

Well one thing that helps now is that anyone arriving in China goes into a quarantine hotel for 14 days, and only then goes on their way.

Whereas in Australia people are still arriving who following an honesty system to go somewhere and self-isolate where some of them have been infected exposing people they meet on the way to their accommodation to the virus. Not to mention people like the couple from the Amsterdam in Perth who posted how they were enjoying a beer and a cider at a hotel!

 

[DC3]

... Not the mention people like the couple from the Amsterdam in Perth posted how there were enjoying a beer anda cider ata hotel!

Drinks on the sidewalk.

 

[juddles]

China managed through severe systems to force a cork into the bottle. but they did this not by actually stopping the virus, They have a finger in the bottle which is trying to break out. Whilst they maintain that effort in keeping that finger there the whole economy is also dying. So they must release the cork one day. Or die of suffocation.

 

[oz_mark]

China managed through severe systems to force a cork into the bottle. but they did this not by actually stopping the virus, They have a finger in the bottle which is trying to break out. Whilst they maintain that effort in keeping that finger there the whole economy is also dying. So they must release the cork one day. Or die of suffocation.

Finding the right time to release the cork is going to be difficult. Even more so here. People will get restless long before it is time to open things up again. Open it too early, and boom you're off again.

Give that it's basically been a two month lockdown is a lesson for what we've got ahead of us.

I suspect we can largely write 2020 off...

 

[burmans]

I think the exit strategy is interesting here. Not sure who saw the Q and A on the ABC last night but this was very useful to wards the end of the show on this.

Many assume that the only way out of this are
a) we eventually get herd immunity
b) we get a vaccine

Personally I think there is a third option and the show touched on this. There are a number of treatments which have a reasonable success rate already being trialled. As existing meds they have the advantage of not needing the full approval cycle. These would have twin benefits of reducing the death rate/ increasing the recovery rate. But in doing so they would also reduce the spread of the virus. If this can be achieved this does start to look more like some other virus's where we don't need the same measures as currently.

 

[theblank]

No chance China will start letting foreigners in, they will be closed for 6 months (or whatever) like everywhere else. Why would anyone open their borders until the virus is under control world wide?

China can fully come out of domestic lockdown and return to full production without allowing foreigners in. Then they get to flood the worlds markets with their cheap stuff because everyone else is still closed. Chinese economy booms again.

 

[moa999]

Not if everyone else is locked down and has limited money.

Q&A was interesting.
The option C appears to be the path we are on. Suppress the virus enough so the hospital system doesn't get overloaded, but still have a partially functioning economy.
Point was made that any lockdown needs to be 6 months to be successful.

Deputy CMO also said that as overseas arrivals drop to near zero, we will have more capacity to test in community and the rules around testing will change in the next few days.

Also made the point that we aren't 2 wks behind Europe, much further as bulk of our infected are still overseas arrivals.

 

[JohnK]

If you stop overseas arrivals today and enforce a lockdown with limited contact wouldn't you know in maximum 2-4 weeks who had the virus and then wait for them to recover in isolation?

Yes I do realise the time can be longer as new people are infected but in theory it shouldn't take too long especially if you use some of these medicines that have been trialled.

Of course it can take the world longer but this isn't 1820 and major lockdown for too long can have negative effect too. It won't be COVID-19 that will get me but boredom.

Looking at the global statistics I also believe that the infection rate and mortality rates have reached a peak or am I misreading the numbers?

 

[Julesmac]

No chance China will start letting foreigners in, they will be closed for 6 months (or whatever) like everywhere else. Why would anyone open their borders until the virus is under control world wide?

China can fully come out of domestic lockdown and return to full production without allowing foreigners in. Then they get to flood the worlds markets with their cheap stuff because everyone else is still closed. Chinese economy booms again.

Ask yourself which of all the countries in the world will benefit from this? China first and foremost. They will come out of this totally tooled up, cashed up, minus a few million citizens, one expects mostly the elderly who would likely require care of some sort as the population ages. Heck they own an awful lot of Australia including the means of food production........

 

[juddles]

.......

Looking at the global statistics I also believe that the infection rate and mortality rates have reached a peak or am I misreading the numbers?

JohnK, I think a key thing to acknowledge here is that the stats are NOT about real numbers of cases, but rather they are CONFIRMED cases.

The rates of increase in these figures are much more likely to be indicative of each countries ability and propensity to test, rather than an indication of reality of the actual spread of the disease.

In almost all countries (other than Italy) the number of cases is still "low" enough that the health systems are not yet swamped. This will change over the next few weeks, and we can unfortunately expect an exponential growth in mortalities.

 

[juddles]

.......

Also made the point that we aren't 2 wks behind Europe, much further as bulk of our infected are still overseas arrivals.

I am sure that people arriving have higher levels of Coronavirus than the average population, but the stats are completely skewed here at the moment due to the focus on them.

Australian health authorities pretty much restrict any testing to people coming in from overseas (or their associates), then tells us that "most cases are from people coming in from overseas or their associates". ??????!!

 

[juddles]

No chance China will start letting foreigners in, they will be closed for 6 months (or whatever) like everywhere else. Why would anyone open their borders until the virus is under control world wide?

China can fully come out of domestic lockdown and return to full production without allowing foreigners in. Then they get to flood the worlds markets with their cheap stuff because everyone else is still closed. Chinese economy booms again.

I am certain that this virus will never be "under control worldwide". There are just too many countries where they simply do not have the capacity to annihilate it. This Coronavirus is with us forever....

Due to their sheer population, China is perhaps the most vulnerable country on the planet to contagious diseases. The fact that through drastic measures they may have quelled it for the moment is just a temporary thing. Their only plan can be keeping a lockdown until a vaccine or treatment is found. And when that happens the rest of the world will have that also.

This will not give China any advantage - on the contrary, those countries with less control will emerge more quickly from it, albeit at an acute human cost....

 

[JohnK]

In almost all countries (other than Italy) the number of cases is still "low" enough that the health systems are not yet swamped. This will change over the next few weeks, and we can unfortunately expect an exponential growth in mortalities.

Assuming we know and record all deaths from Coronavirus if the number of cases increases then the death rate falls right?

If not all have been tested there must be quite a few people that have had Coronavirus without showing any symptoms and are now immune?

The other thing that does not make sense are the death rates for some countries such as Germany, UK and Australia where the death is well below average.

 

[juddles]

Assuming we know and record all deaths from Coronavirus if the number of cases increases then the death rate falls right?

If not all have been tested there must be quite a few people that have had Coronavirus without showing any symptoms and are now immune?

The other thing that does not make sense are the death rates for some countries such as Germany, UK and Australia where the death is well below average.

I suspect that, just like Swine flu, the real numbers of infected people will never be actually known, as so many who had nil or mild symptoms will never be tested. But this Coronavirus appears to be so contagious that a majority of the total population will eventually get it.

All figures of confirmed cases at the moment are only a general indication of presence of the disease and a countries ability and/or desire to test, not real numbers.

The mortality rates such as the 10% seen in some countries is extremely unlikely - it is just they have tested so few and concentrate testing on only the very ill. It would befar more likely that the overall mortality rate would be far less than 1% - but even at much lower rates such as "1 in a thousand" the maths is unpleasantly simple....