Thread by @DrEricDing

I have a bad feeling again—China is reinstating measures & has fired the mayors of 2 key cities. Thus far, China has shut down an industrial city, urged residents not to leave Beijing and closed down schools in Shanghai due to increase of #COVID19. 👀 thehill.com/policy/healthc…

2) If mainland China 🇨🇳 follows the way of Hong Kong 🇭🇰 — then China will be royally screwed. And the world’s supply chain might completely melt down for a period. HK deaths are surging so high it is approaching NYC in spring 2020–and HK hasn’t peaked yet.

3) Worse, “Mainland 🇨🇳 has already started to divert flights away from Shanghai & began lockdown this week with closures in some of its largest provinces. Vessels have stopped departing from Shanghai as a port.” —DAMN that is serious. This is Shanghai! 👀
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

4) Most of the China and HK surges are #BA2. Meanwhile in England… both cases and hospitalizations surging. And #BA2 is now over 50%. Not good.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1502037691126497283

5) Assume China knows more than it reveals. They’ve built extra surge hospitals recently too. China has also recently approved rapid antigen testing. They had resisted for over 26 months. Something is very different now. reuters.com/world/china/ch…

6) In the first two months of 2022, the megacity, with a population of nearly 25 million, has logged 1,243 confirmed COVID-19 cases arriving from outside the Chinese mainland. The number is also roughly ~80% of Shanghai's total imported cases last year.
xinhuanet.com/english/202203…

7) Regarding Shanghai’s shutdown — its a city of 25,000,000 people! (And likely more, not including illegal migrants without “huko” residency permits). One person describes it this way— he no longer had communication with anyone at his Shanghai office as of Friday.

https://twitter.com/0__DeadEnd__0/status/1502954107761479682

8) Hong Kong was once as strict on #COVID19 as mainland China was. Yet somehow it partly gave up and lost control. Here is how HK now compares to 44 other *high income* counties. If this hits Shanghai & other major Chinese industrial cities… supply chains worldwide will suffer.

https://twitter.com/fibke/status/1503022353416138755

9) UPDATE—the 13-million population city of Shenzhen has locked down! With all non-essential enterprises stop operating, or required to work from home. Buses and subways all suspended. Govt services shut down except for epidemic essential staff. Holy shit.
ishare.ifeng.com/c/s/v006LBcjcB…

10) ⚠️ Shenzhen health official Lin Hancheng warns Sunday that this #BA2 strain is "highly contagious, spreads quickly and has a high degree of concealment", leading to widespread community transmission if control measures were not strengthened soon. 👀
xw.qq.com/cmsid/20220313…

11) Update—Jilin (city of 1.3 mil pop where China central govt just fired mayor yesterday) is now building a new 6000-bed isolation 🏥 clinic— in less than a week! Remind you of somewhere in Jan 2020?

https://twitter.com/lookner/status/1503207658244952070

12) Outbreak is still early in China 🇨🇳, but look at that near-vertical surge. The fact that it’s simultaneously happening in with lockdowns in multiple cities at once shows urgency that we haven’t seen before. And keep in mind Shenzhen & Shanghai are critical industrial cities!

13) China isn’t alone in this mess. South Korea 🇰🇷 is also see an epic surge— now surpassing all time pandemic highs.

14) If HK is a country, its #COVID19 death rate per capita would be 5x higher than the next highest country (which also has near complete #BA2). If Shenzhen is surging because it is the immediate neighbor of HK. If Shenzhen, the industrial core of 🇨🇳, is disrupted, it’ll be hell.

https://twitter.com/antonio_caramia/status/1503144256990588929

15) For Western European countries who think they are immune from #BA2 after their recent #Omicron wave… well there is some sobering news for you — your govt leaders who claim ‘COVID is over’ are delusional and lying to you. Learn from what’s happening elsewhere #CovidIsNotOver

https://twitter.com/gosiagasperophd/status/1503235647246503939

16) UPDATE— Jilin Province, population 24 million, has just gone into lockdown.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1503270983079280643

17) UPDATE— Apple supplier Foxconn shuts all its Shenzhen factories as #COVID19 outbreak in China grows - ft.com/content/d59c76…

18) Hong Kong health experts say they do not expect local #COVID19 infections to decline any time soon, with one warning residents not to let their guard down, as cases could rebound at any time. HK seems to be in trouble for a while—likely Shenzhen too.

scmp.com/news/hong-kong…

19) with scenes like this in China prior to the lockdown, you can see why Shenzhen region is having to resort to lockdowns to keep things from getting out of hand. In China, population density is by far one of the riskiest thing with a contagious virus.

https://twitter.com/manyapan/status/1503288960205959168

20) UPDATE— Dongguan, with population over 7 million, has also suddenly gone into lockdown. Dongguan is another major industrial city adjacent to Shenzhen and near Hong Kong.

21) As you can see, cases are rising everywhere in China. It’s not just in northeast Jilin or south near Shenzhen. 23 of the 31 mainland provinces reported confirmed, symptomatic cases over the past week. Including asymptomatic cases, there were almost 10,000 new cases.

22) I’m now confident that #BA2 definitely deserves its own distinct Greek letter, separate or Omicron family. BA1 and BA2 are more different than Delta is from original Wuhan 1.0 strain. And the infectiousness and attack rates don’t lie —BA2 is worse by leaps and bounds! 👇

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1503483876123025408

23) Catch up on what is #BA2–This is a good quick video of BA2 to date, which is much more dangerous and which honestly deserves its own Greek letter. C’mon @WHO. #CovidIsNotOver

HT @lindseytheis #COVID19

24) Bottomline: I believe China is now teetering at the edge between barely containing BA2 wave of COVID-19 and completely losing control like it has in Hong Kong—

I’ve summarized my thoughts below:
medriva.com/china-at-a-cov…

25) …which we know could spell horrible conditions outcomes and huge economic difficulties and disruption to the most critical manufacturing and export centers of the world. Thus, this bodes extremely poorly for the rest of the global supply chain crisis and economic stability.

26) What happens in China over the coming weeks will affect the world. COVID is not over — with the world acting slowly only further endangering the world. God help us. medriva.com/china-at-a-cov…