Original thread by Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing)

⚠️THERMONUCLEAR BAD—Hospitals completely overwhelmed in China ever since restrictions dropped. Epidemiologist estimate >60% of ?? & 10% of Earth’s population likely infected over next 90 days. Deaths likely in the millions—plural. This is just the start—?

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2) Summary of #CCP’s current #COVID goal: “Let whoever needs to be infected infected, let whoever needs to die die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production.” @jenniferzeng97

Dead bodies piled up in NE China in 1 night—

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3) Doubling time in China may not be days anymore. Doubling time now possibly “hours” says some experts — let that sink in. R is hard to calculate if doubling is <1 day because it’s hard to PCR test that fast. The point is ?? & the ? is in deep trouble.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/15/1143002538/china-appears-to-be-facing-what-could-be-the-world-s-largest-coronavirus-outbrea

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4) The deaths in mainland China is being hugely underreported outside of ??. Through a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors & related funeral industry chains in Beijing—there is a recent explosion in funeral services caused by the sharp increase in deaths.
https://www.rfi.fr/tw/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B/20221218-%E6%B8%AF%E5%AA%92%E7%BD%95%E6%8F%AD%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E7%96%AB%E6%83%85%E9%A3%86%E5%8D%87%E7%96%AB%E6%AD%BB%E5%A2%9E%E5%A4%9A-%E5%83%85-%E5%8C%97%E4%BA%AC%E6%9F%93%E7%96%AB%E5%9C%A8%E5%AE%B6%E8%BA%AB%E4%BA%A1%E5%B0%B1%E6%9C%892700%E5%A4%9A

 

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5) Example—cremation in Beijing nonstop. Morgues are overloaded. Refrigerated containers needed. 24/7 funerals. 2000 bodies backlogged for cremations. Sound familiar? It is spring 2020 all over again— but this time for China, emulating more Western-mass infection approach. ??‍♂️

 

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6) Westerns think there is a fever and antibiotic shortage now? ➡️Wait until China’s production is diverted from exports! Here—people rushed to a pharmaceutical factory to buy ibuprofen because it is completely sold out elsewhere! Dec 18, in #Zhuhai City.

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7) Yes I care because I was born in China — but also because I’m an epidemiologist (my D degree is in it), & I’ve seen this shit show before. What happens in China doesn’t stay in ??— Wuhan was our lesson 3 years ago. The global fallout of this 2022-2023 wave will not be small.?

 

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8) I’m going to pause for a moment—am I saying this will be the start of another “Thermonuclear bad” #COVID wave worldwide? Not necessarily via virus directly— but the global economic fallout from China’s new mega tsunami wave will be ugly. You can ignore my words at own peril.⬇️

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9) 1-2 million deaths in China is a very common number lately—I’ve seen the models— it’s certainly possible. It could be higher if govt doesn’t do anything, lower if govt curbs virus with heavy mitigations again. ➡️But anti-China-zero-COVID folks should accept their hand in this.

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10) We need more collective empathy in this world. Just because something happens in a faraway city somewhere that you’ve never heard of—doesn’t mean it won’t affect you. Chances are— in this world—it will affect you. And it may affect / harm our children… may they forgive us.

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11) Schools are closed in Shanghai for the next month, and in many other outbreak cities. This comes just weeks after restrictions on COVID were lifted. Protecting kids is also protecting their parents / caretakers and preventing them from being orphaned by a pandemic.

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12) so what is going on with China’s vaccination situation? There is a lot of vaccine resistance in the elderly. Additionally, the newer #Omicron sub variants, 2 shots not enough – and 3 shots of China’s main CoronaVac may not be enough again for bad evasive new variants.

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13) A deeper problem lies in the weaker CoronaVac (by SinoVac) & Sinopharm vaccines. Notice how even with 3 shots of main CoronaVac shot, neutralization performance against newer recent #omicron variants is poor—this is bad. China isn’t using bivalent yet.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.15.507787v4

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14) That said, even with recent #Ba5 infection or a recent BA5 bivalent booster, while neutralization is improved, it’s only slightly better. But modest against some of the really troublesome variants China is facing. It’s not the same old Wuhan strain anymore.

HT @yunlong_cao

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15) This is real—In case you need video proof of the cremations—Staff at Beijing’s largest Babaoshan funeral house confirmed that all of its incinerators were working but were still unable to meet demand, resulting in a 20-day backlog…

HT @gchahal

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16) BBC’s China reporter @StephenMcDonell tells me… “In Beijing Covid has gone crazy, must be millions infected really quickly. I’m sure other cities will be next.”

Watch this BBC report — “China is overloaded and in for a rough few months”…

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17) Among those overloaded are home delivery (food) drivers… not enough of them to keep up. Many have #COVID themselves. Food delivery orders piling up unable to be delivered. It’s a shit show. (Screenshot from BBC video above h.

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18) That said, China has very recent approved an aerosolized (inhaled) vaccine delivered via a nebulized form—it produced a greater antibody response than intramuscular—& also raised antibodies over 9-fold, and at lower dose. Mucosal vaccines could be key.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35605625/

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19) More importantly, inhaled vaccines also have the potential to induce a broader ‘mucosal immunity’, which could better defend against breakthrough infection, not just severe disease. This is why we need a mucosal vaccine trial funded soon. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add9947#body-ref-R3

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20) Key—aerosolized nebulizer inhaled mucosal vaccine booster also performed better against newer #SARSCoV2 variants than muscle injected vaccines. This is key.

Again, this research is from ??. US has funded zero randomized trials on mucosal vaccines!
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/22221751.2022.2132881

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21) While we know China’s old CoronaVac vaccine is weak, China’s newest aerosolized nebulizer-inhaled mucosal vaccine is likely more powerful — 14.5x stronger in eliciting antibodies versus CoronaVac. The US needs to invest in these next gen stuff.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.08.22271816v1

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22) And yes, China has emergency approved their inhaled vaccine (by CanSino) already for rollout. But most vaccines being administered in China is still the CoronaVac shot. My hope is the new miracle aerosolized inhaled vaccines will make a difference. ? https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/06/china/china-covid-19-vaccine-cansino-intl-hnk/index.html

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23) In case anyone wondering— yes, US has one in development too—Washington University developed one — and currently licensed to Ocugen. Yale has developed a nasal one too. But the problem is that there are no US funding for any trials! Warp speed 2.0??? https://source.wustl.edu/2022/10/washu-covid-19-nasal-vaccine-technology-licensed-to-ocugen/

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24) Back to China crisis—folks, I’m not exaggerating on the up to 2 million dead from #COVID in China in the coming months. Research teams have modeled it. It’s possible if no intervention. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-08/end-of-covid-zero-threatens-to-overwhelm-china-with-infections

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25) So how much did China’s COVID mitigation rules change? Actually ?? lifted only some of the most severe—but still left A LOT OF MITIGATIONS—China did not throw rip up everything and reopen like UK or US did ([cough] @CDCDirector fail)—hence #COVID just that evasive. See ?

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26) You don’t have to believe me. Many people didn’t in Jan 2020 when I tried to warn the “novel coronavirus” was a pandemic that the world hasn’t seen since 1918. And I’m saying that #CovidIsNotOver. I’m just an epidemiologist trying to warn… https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/why-was-it-so-hard-to-raise-the-alarm-on-coronavirus.html

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27) I’m going to take a short break. China situation is fast moving. If you want more of my research and data aggregation— subscribe ✍️ below. I’ll post this thread ? there shortly. Stay safe everyone ?
https://drericding.substack.com/subscribe

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28) I’ve been reading comments. some call me a “CCP propagandist” or a “communist shill”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethnic Chinese makes me care, doesn’t make me a shill. I have been a public health advocate for 16 years. Here is an old NYT piece on who I am… ?

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29) WHITE HOUSE’S National Security Council KIRBY says—

⚠️U.S. MONITORING OF CHINA’S COVID SITUATION, INCLUDES POTENTIAL IMPACT ON U.S. COMPANIES AND SUPPLY CHAINS

➡️We need to worry about supply chains if China #COVID explosion continues.

HT @DeItaone

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30) ?UPDATE—China ??’s chief epidemiologist now says that “the worst is yet to come”, @selinawangtv. There will likely be 3 big ?? #COVID19 waves coming—this is just the first. ➡️Next big wave will come after the Lunar new year travels in late January!

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31) China has HUGE vulnerable elderly population that is unvaccinated or undervaccinated—➡️130 million such people. Mortality in this group would be likely very high— easily over 1 million if the virus spreads unchecked in China. This is why 1-2 million total deaths is possible.

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32) China is still reporting 0 or single digit deaths, and not providing hospital reports to WHO. It’s getting ridiculous to say there’s nobody dying in China when the reports are clear as day from inside China. This overflow of body bags was even at a top hospital in Beijing.

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33) let this sink in — **OXYGEN TANKS ARE DEPLETED** at even top level Beijing capitol’s hospitals. You know when that happens that it is much worse at secondary and smaller hospitals and clinics…

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34) Frustrated staffers in Beijing state media also now venting that they can’t run certain TV shows because over half of staff are home sick with #COVID. I mentioned this on @NPR @hereandnow discussing ??crisis w/ @tongscott—it keeps me awake at night. https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/12/23/china-covid-surge