Let me guess, Vincent also works as a UA flight attendant?
:D

Oh my! I can see that the horse has left the barn. Simply put, if Vincent (or competitor) agrees to work with any of you guys, you will be able to come here, full stop!

The entry fee is seriously 5 figures now, though. China is honestly pretty nice these days, but maybe not that nice.

The Kingdom would never accept that *being reported publicly*. I think you finished your sentence a few words early :).

It's definitely no fun everywhere you go, you need to present 48-hour PCR test.

Actually I think every positive case is publicized in China. Local officials dare NOT hide anything

Shanghai is still reasonably fun but that gets old in a hurry if you aren’t an alcoholic. Shenzhen is now in a full on Orwellian lockdown with a sea of hazmat suited personnel deployed throughout Futian Nanshan and Shekou. You are given a 3 hour window to leave your apartment to procure groceries once a week.

China is not even registering on the radar as a fun place to be for anyone who isn’t a victim of Stockholm syndrome.

It’s coming to Shanghai soon as Omicron has been spreading here for a few days now. Some
employees of mine are in government lockdown now.

I have every confidence SH is going to show HK up on how to manage a proper zero lockdown.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the population in the Kingdom welcome Stockholm syndrome and refuse medication.

This is inevitable. Nobody can beat Omicron.

Wait until large waves of Omicron. Current zero COVID strategy will eventually fail.

I'm bracing for major lockdowns in Beijing.....just a matter of time, IMO.

This is pretty simple:

If you believe Zero Covid will fail, then the logical move is to shift the messaging and eventually open up (like in the above quoted WSJ article). Based on Hong Kong this probability is more likely than not.

If you believe Zero Covid won’t fail, then you keep locking down everything again. However there are other confounding factors like the rest of the world is opening up, local property markets, etc.

The dumb part is if they get stuck in the middle (Zero Covid fails, but they don’t open it up) ie. Hong Kong. If you look at New Zealand, they just dropped all the quarantine requirements because there are more cases inside the country than out and are accelerating the border reopening timeline.

Most know zero Covid is dumb. Most don’t want to tell the emperor. Hence, zero Covid will be China’s policy going forward for the foreseeable future.

What is going on in Hong Kong now is asinine, yet they still cling to “dynamic” zero Covid. Why? Xi knows why.

It’s a means of stating ownership, same as how all stamps must state “Hong Kong, China”, our passport bear the National Emblem, as does our Legco from this sitting (even after the swearing in).

I still can't believe that elderly people in an advanced modern city like HK refused to be vaccinated.

It's a recipe for disaster.

Worse, the government of HK dare not acknowledge that PRC vaccine is hugely ineffective.

Instead, they seduced people in HK to get vaccine produced in the Kingdom in order to please the emperor.

That's a bit extreme. On the ground, we see the elders as deeply distrustful of western medicine - both Chinese attenuated virus vaccines and mRNA - and a government far more tolerant of them than against dissident young people. Government may have better getting elders to take some herb from Africa would protect them from harm even if it involves (or particularly if they say) steaming in their bare hands for four hours a day.

The only way to get them to vaccinate is a outbreak like the one we're having now. It worked to drive up vaccination numbers in NSW in their last winter, it will work here for our seniors. Of course, it will never be official policy to allow an outbreak, hence all the theatre about testing.

It's a combination of King Pooh commanding back the tide, and the Emperor's New Clothes of everyone trying to say it's working.

“hugely ineffective” compared to what? an experimental technology with no history of long term side effects that appears effective for 8-12 weeks and then falls off a cliff?

China has had the mRNA option, and they have chosen against it...perhaps because they see it as more of an experimental therapeutic than true vaccine. I don’t know if that’s correct, but neither was the narrative that covid STOPS with mRNA. To blast them as “trying to please the emperor” is absurd.