• Like, there are more deaths now after everything opened up, but even this is pretty low compared to every other developed country that has similarly opened up. And yes, while even a single death really sucks and should not be downplayed as “collateral damage” or “it is what it is”, China is still doing really well, especially considering how much harder it is to control diseases in high population densities than lower population densities, and China is obviously one of the densest countries in the world.

    I think because places like the US and Canada opened up a while ago (read: over a year or two ago which really isn’t that long but people have goldfish attention spans nowadays) and therefore forgot just how bad it was when it first opened up and people were no longer being protected by quarantine. We had plenty of deaths during that too. But they compare to China’s covid stats now to what the US and Canada is now, you know, over two years after the initial opening up and therefore infections have kind of tapered off as diseases do, and they conclude that China is doing worse than the US and Canada. This is like saying that the jumbo jet on the taxiway is worse than the crop duster that’s already flying because the jumbo jet is travelling more slowly at this particularly instance.