Xi Jinping vs. Ron DeSantis on Covid Response

Xi Jinping "Optimizes" Covid Response while DeSantis Seeks Appointment of Grand Jury to Investigate CDC

In the last few days there have been very different responses to recent increases in Covid infection rates by two dictators: Xi Jinping, the real dictator of China, and Ron DeSantis, the would-be dictator of Florida.

Xi Jingping was faced with protests and demonstrations across China to his long-standing Zero Covid policy when Chinese people rebelled at the frequent lockdowns, inability to obtain food, loss of employment, and loss of business to a point where they had enough. Some thought Xi would react harshly to the protests, but instead he surprised many by responding to the protests with some sensible alterations of the Chinese Covid strategy which Global Times, the Chinese international journal, and People’s Daily, the news outlet for domestic consumption, are calling the “optimization” of Covid strategy. The optimized Chinese plan, developed and announced by Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, one of the highest women in the Chinese government hierarchy, abandoned the Zero Covid approach and instead are using a Ten Point Plan that emphasizes opening up residences, businesses and universities, while implementing a rapid and overdue vaccination program including booster injections for the elderly and others who have previously declined vaccines. They are not requiring people tested Covid positive to isolate if they are asymptomatic, they have reduced the ubiquitous Covid testing stations, they are not imposing quarantine on residences where there may be a Covid positive inhabitant, and they are emphasizing rest and treatment at home if symptoms are not too severe. Global Times admits that there has been a shortage of testing kits and medications to treat flu-like symptoms, and they claim to have ordered Chinese pharmaceutical companies to drastically ramp up production and delivery of various medications to treat Covid symptoms. They are also not forcing people to clinics or hospitals, as they did before, but instead relying on people to treat themselves as long as delivery of needed medications increases.

Now let’s turn to Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, and in light of increasing Covid infections in Florida, what steps has he taken to address the rise of Covid: he filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court to impanel an investigating Grand Jury to investigate the Centers for Disease Control, the CDC and the Biden Administration in general. Has DeSantis uncovered some criminality in the CDC of the kind calling for a Grand Jury? No, he has not found any, but instead in what is now a familiar Ron DeSantis move he has responded to increased Covid to another DeSantis publicity stunt by asking for a Grand Jury investigation except he knows of no criminality on the part of the CDC or others in the Biden Administration, and he did not even specify any alleged criminality to justify impaneling a Grand Jury.

Instead Governor DeSantis has issued another of his now common publicity stunts instead of addressing the public health issues. He besmirches the reputation of the CDC and its executive officers by seeking a Grand Jury when that is not done unless there is some evidence of criminality, but DeSantis has none. This is an embarrassment to all Floridians who still, despite DeSantis and his phony health secretary who preaches against the efficacy of vaccines, are science based and believers in truth and legitimate inquiry. Hopefully, the Florida Supreme Court, despite its Republican Justices, will deny this latest phony DeSantis stunt.

It is hard to believe that DeSantis attended and graduated from both Harvard and Yale with his outlandish stunts like his charter aircraft transport of recent asylum seekers in Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis must have majored in phony theatrical actions and performances at both Harvard and Yale, and somehow they both apparently awarded him degrees, with honors, despite his lack of real thought and inquiry. Perhaps he took drama lessons at Yale and learned dramatic techniques at Harvard Law School.

DeSantis issued a Press release about his Petition to the Florida Supreme Court which says:

The pharmaceutical industry and the FDA have refused t release patient-level data for independent researchers. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna have received FDA approval for pediatric and adult patients and continue to be marketed as safe and effective, even though even though the vaccines do not prevent transmission and adverse events have been minimized and disregarded by the Biden Administration and Big Pharma. In response, Governor DeSantis has filed a petition to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate crimes and wrongs in Florida related to the COVID-19 vaccines and further recommend enforcement methods.

The only crimes and wrongs in Florida related to the Covid-19 vaccines, are the statements and actions of DeSantis and his know-nothing health secretary, Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who make false claims about the vaccines, misstate their purpose and usefulness, and ignore their use in preventing serious illness and death. So, if the Florida Supreme Court bows to DeSantis political stunt, the Statewide Grand Jury should immediately investigate both DeSantis and Ladapo.

While DeSantis continues to rely on political stunts to be the mini-Trump with degrees, Xi Jingping is actually responding to the Covid problem in China, some of his own making with his Zero tolerance policy. Global Times has the following to say about the dramatic course correction in China’s Covid efforts:

Delivery personnel dispatch COVID-19 antigen kits and medicines for fever, cold and cough as demand surges on December 8, 2022, after restrictions on drug purchases were lifted. Many pharmacies and drug producers are scrambling to ramp up supply in response. Photo: Li Hao/GT

China stopped counting the daily tally of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases starting on Wednesday, and at the same time rolled out second booster shots for vulnerable groups, including the elderly and those with chronic diseases, and doubled down on ensuring the public's needs for medicine and medical care.

Those moves further push the focus of China's COVID-19 fight from curbing off infection to shoring up resources to bolster the medical system for the first exit wave, a key step that guarantees a safe and orderly re-opening for the country, said epidemiologists.

The short period of strained medical resources and short supply of COVID-19 materials will eventually be weathered with Chinese people's cooperation, solidarity, and the government's top-down coordination efforts, said experts. They believe China's road to re-opening will be "safe and orderly," instead of what foreign media has described as "bumpy." The country only relaxed restrictions when the virus was less lethal and preparations were in place, unlike Western countries that were forced to surrender in face of even deadly variants.

China pivots from curbing infection to medical treatment, guarantees safe re-opening - Global Times

There is more honesty and actual information presented in that Chinese publication than in Governor DeSantis News Release and announcement of his Petition for a Grand Jury. Who would have thought there would be a day that the Chinese press would be more truthful and responsible than a Florida Governor?

Global Times went on to give some statistics about vaccinations, and the numbers are slight increases from previously reported numbers and may therefore be fairly accurate:

The same day, the NHC also rolled out a plan for second COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for high-risk groups and seniors over 60 years old. It said people who can take the second booster shot will include those with serious underlying conditions and those with low immunity.

As of Tuesday, 86.6 percent of those aged above 60 in China had completed a full course of vaccination (two shots), and 69 percent had received first booster shot (third shot); 66.4 percent of those aged over 80 had completed the full-course vaccination and 42.3 percent had a booster shot, Xia Gang, an NHC official in charge of immunization services said at a Wednesday conference.

Now resources should be concentrated on protecting vulnerable groups and guaranteeing treatment of severe cases and preventing deaths, Zeng said.

Global Times continued to describe Chinese new “optimized” policies on Covid treatment with an amazing amount of truthful disclosure of shortages and inadequacies:

A doctor in a Beijing hospital told the Global Times that his hospital has dispatched more people to the fever clinic this week and designated a "red zone" for patients with COVID-19. The "red zone" wards are designed especially for pregnant women, and people with chronic diseases or with severe symptoms.

Nationwide, hospitals of second level and above opened more than 14,000 fever clinics as of Wednesday; on the grass-roots level, there are 33,000 such clinics, said another NHC official, noting waiting time outside the clinic in some places has reduced from the previous average of four hours to just 40 minutes.

After complaints about shortages of medicines, five large pharmaceutical firms in Beijing have ramped up production and dispatched 3.5 million boxes of COVID-19 related medicines to thousands of medical institutes and pharmacies in Beijing.

The Global Times article ends by discussing the dramatic increase in Covid infections in Hong King earlier this year and claims that mainland Chinese preparations will not lead to the same increase in Covid than the earlier Hong Kong experience:

The death rate from Omicron is around 0.1 percent, similar to the common flu, and the infection rarely reaches the lungs, China's top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan told the Xinhua News Agency last week. Most people recover from the variant within seven to 10 days, he said.

Moreover, China is upping the ante on its preparations. Hospitals nationwide are striving to shore up their preparedness for possible exit waves. An official from the NHC said last week that hospitals have moved quickly in recent days to increase ICU beds, more than doubling intensive care bed capacity to 10 beds per 100,000 people, up from less than four just a month ago.

Responding to the hypothesis that tens of thousands of people could die in the Chinese mainland, in reference to the death rate of Hong Kong's deadly fifth COVID-19 wave earlier in the year, Zhong, the renowned epidemiologist, brushed aside the scenario. He said that when the wave hit Hong Kong, less than 20 percent of those aged above 60 in the city was fully vaccinated. Yet 68.86 percent of the age group in the mainland had received a booster shot as of December 8. "It is far from enough, but it is surely better than Hong Kong back then," Zhong said.

Time will tell which strategy is better, but frankly it is amazing that Xi Jingping did not react to the protests and demonstrations by repression, but rather instituted and approved major course corrections using the word “optimization” as a 21st century way to “save face.”

But Floridians are stuck with only DeSantis stunts in his efforts to appeal to the Trump “base”, an apt word to describe the Trump-DeSantis followers.