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Speaker 1: Show Courtiers Bloomberg's, a global healthcare corresponded to talk about

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Speaker 1: the latest with China and it's ongoing struggle with COVID

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Speaker 1: and Michelle much of the risk of the world is

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Speaker 1: of course long since exited tough COVID sittings. China's really

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Speaker 1: struggling though, And can you lay out first the range

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Speaker 1: of all very unpalatable choices that are open to policy makers. Well,

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Speaker 1: China has been really successful in keeping COVID out for

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Speaker 1: almost the entire pandemic since it emerged in Wuhan because

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Speaker 1: of these really really tough restrictions that they follow there.

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Speaker 1: Not only do they isolate everybody who is infected with COVID,

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Speaker 1: they isolate everybody who's been in contact with those people,

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Speaker 1: and they contact trace those people's contacts, so it's different

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Speaker 1: levels of contact tracing, and then they mass test entire

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Speaker 1: cities and shut down you know, lockdowns, keep everyone in

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Speaker 1: their apartments if they need to, in these you know,

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Speaker 1: more strict measures. And of course that's what the government

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Speaker 1: decided about two weeks ago now to kind of dial

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Speaker 1: back a little bit, some cut some of the fat

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Speaker 1: off of this because it was really weighing on the

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Speaker 1: economy and the people. And now we're seeing these case

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Speaker 1: numbers increase right up about forty thousand a day, which

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Speaker 1: is not large for the rest of the world, but

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Speaker 1: it's unthinkable really in China. We've seen nothing like that

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Speaker 1: until now, and so they're trying at the one hand

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Speaker 1: to dial back the measures. At the same time they

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Speaker 1: have increased spread of a more contagious variant, and the

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Speaker 1: local officials are caught between a rock and a hard place.

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Speaker 1: How do you get rid of something using less aggressive measures.

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Speaker 1: It's just very difficult. At the risk of sounding a

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Speaker 1: little hyperbolic here, I'm wondering whether we're focused on the

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Speaker 1: wrong thing. And it really is a conversation that should

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Speaker 1: be more about mental health at this point rather than

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Speaker 1: the virus per se. I mean, given the expression this,

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Speaker 1: this magnitude of protest in a country like China, you

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Speaker 1: would only imagine that under the surface, there is so

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Speaker 1: much pressure that has been building, and I can only

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Speaker 1: imagine that repressing that is going to have dire consequences

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Speaker 1: to to the mental health of people. Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: great point, and and it's a very broad issue across

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Speaker 1: every group of people. Right. You can certainly talk about

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Speaker 1: the kids who haven't been able to go to school,

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Speaker 1: people who can't go to work, those who do have

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Speaker 1: to go there on the front line. They've been told

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Speaker 1: for the last three years that this virus is incredibly

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Speaker 1: dangerous and that's why it has to be avoided at

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Speaker 1: all costs. So there's definitely people who are terrified that

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Speaker 1: COVID is going to take hold there and that they're

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Speaker 1: going to see these You know, we're seeing numbers anywhere

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Speaker 1: from one point three to two point one million deaths

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Speaker 1: if COVID takes hold. And you remember when you went

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Speaker 1: through it for the first time, this COVID gauntlet. It's

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Speaker 1: a terrifying thought that this virus is going to come

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Speaker 1: and get you and then you're going to pass it

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Speaker 1: on to your loved ones and you're going to be

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Speaker 1: responsible for killing them and you just don't have any

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Speaker 1: experience with it, and it's really scary, and getting through

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Speaker 1: that process is what you actually have to do. And

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Speaker 1: instead it's this existential angst of am I going to

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Speaker 1: hurt other people? Or am I hurting myself by having

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Speaker 1: to be in this apartment, keeping my kids home, not

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Speaker 1: being able to go out and interact with other people.

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Speaker 1: It's there's no doubt about it that there's all kinds

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Speaker 1: of mental health issues happening here, and and how about

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Speaker 1: physical health problems? Though, because China has been dealing with

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Speaker 1: this now for about three years, yet there are questions

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Speaker 1: that the health system is unable to sustain the sort

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Speaker 1: of reopening that we've seen in other countries. Why are

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Speaker 1: we in this situation? I feel like we say this

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Speaker 1: with every every time the virus kind of overtook, every

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Speaker 1: country with the same situations, the same fear of the virus,

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Speaker 1: the same Why wasn't there more preparation. You guys should

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Speaker 1: have known, everyone could see where it was happening, and

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Speaker 1: it just happens again and again and again. As you say,

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Speaker 1: China doesn't really have a very strong health care system,

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Speaker 1: and it's entirely possible that it could be overwhelmed if

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Speaker 1: the virus really takes hold there. With the new twenty

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Speaker 1: measures that they put out about two months ago, they

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Speaker 1: did say three of those were addressed preparing for an outbreak,

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Speaker 1: specifically increasing the number of hospital beds and medical facilities

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Speaker 1: that they would need to care for patients, including increasing

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Speaker 1: by the number of intensive care beds. Of these new

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Speaker 1: beds that they're building, plus stockpiling treatments and increasing vaccination rates.

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Speaker 1: But all of those topics are you know, why are

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Speaker 1: you doing that Three years into the into the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: They could have been building these hospitals preparing for this

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Speaker 1: unless they were thinking it was going to go away.

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Speaker 1: But really we're not hearing from them very clearly in

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Speaker 1: terms of what their exit strategy is or what they're

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Speaker 1: intentional planning was up until this point. So really no

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Speaker 1: one's asking the tough questions over there. A few weeks back,

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Speaker 1: Beijing did approve under emergency used the BioNTech vaccine for

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Speaker 1: foreign expats, and I'm wondering whether or not you can

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Speaker 1: imagine a situation where there is wider adoption of Western

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Speaker 1: m r n A vaccines for the general population or

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Speaker 1: is that just too too much of a thorny issue

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Speaker 1: here for for the government to take on Politically. It's

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Speaker 1: very difficult for them. They have been holding out on

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Speaker 1: that for the last three years. They do have you know,

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Speaker 1: Polson was working with bion Tech. They did have the

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Speaker 1: ability to get it into China and haven't done it yet.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine that the people are going to want

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Speaker 1: that because there is still the sphere of the virus,

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Speaker 1: and the only thing that you can do once the

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Speaker 1: virus really starts taking over is to protect yourself. The

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Speaker 1: best way to do that is with vaccination, and at

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Speaker 1: some point they'll come to that realization, just like everyone else.

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Speaker 1: Has the question of who is going to be able

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Speaker 1: to get these vaccines? Though even the MR and A

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Speaker 1: ones that are allegedly available to Westerners are not really

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Speaker 1: being rolled out widely and we're not seeing very much

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Speaker 1: movement in that particular regard. There is still hope that

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Speaker 1: a Chinese MR and A vaccine will come, but we

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Speaker 1: haven't seen that either. Um. We do have perhaps one

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Speaker 1: glimmer of good news. We're all dealing with delta anymore. Um,

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Speaker 1: we have a less fatal variant and omicron. What does

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Speaker 1: that mean? Does this plan to the equation at all? Right?

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Speaker 1: It's a great point because the omicron seems to make

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Speaker 1: people less sick than delta. Of course, Delta was was

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Speaker 1: worse than original, so maybe we're like kind of a

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Speaker 1: wash right back to the original wild type that they

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Speaker 1: saw there without the additional preparation that they could have

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Speaker 1: been building for the last three years. The challenge is

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Speaker 1: that omicron is so much more infectious, and we are

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Speaker 1: seeing some news reports this morning out of the Global

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Speaker 1: Time saying that there is actually a new variant that spreading,

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Speaker 1: particularly in Beijing, that is more infectious even than Delta

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Speaker 1: and and the omicron that we've seen up until this point,

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Speaker 1: which of course could create additional problems. The situation isn't

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Speaker 1: so much that this particular variant is going to be

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Speaker 1: more sick or less sick. It's getting to those sick

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Speaker 1: as patients. Those are the people you have to protect. Michelle,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for helping us understand in greater

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Speaker 1: depth of what's going on on the mainland as it

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Speaker 1: relates to COVID policy and the situation there. Michelle Cortez,

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Speaker 1: our Global Health corresponded from Hong Kong. Thanks to you,