China And Covid-19: "This Is Not Going To Have A Happy Ending!!

       China made "a threatening jab" at Taiwan recently. A large number of Chinese warplanes flew close to the island nation. Was I concerned? Was I fearing an invasion and a second Ukraine war? The answer is no. The reason is that a major Covid-19 outbreak is crippling China. An estimated 250 million people are infected. Health experts project one million Covid deaths in China within the next 90 days. Imagine how many Covid-19 deaths we will have one year from today in China.

    Let us step back and look at the big picture with respect to China. Elena and I spent several weeks in China in 2008. It was a wonderful trip. We got great treatment from the Chinese people.

    While on a river cruise along the Yangtze River, we made an amazing discovery. China is two countries. Along the coastal areas where most of the big cities are, some 550,000,000 people live. This part of China is a modern first-world country. With the right amount of money, one could enjoy all the same creature comforts and technology, one would find in the US, Canada, Europe, etc. In the interior lies a poor Third World country with roughly 750,000,000 people. The average annual income per family is in the range of $1,500 US. To the credit of the Communist Chinese government, they have done a great job of lifting many of these destitute people out of poverty.

      We got a good introduction to the Chinese healthcare system. There are two parallel tracks here. You have traditional Chinese medicine that includes acupuncture, herbs, and traditional remedies. (This is not completely "voodoo medicine." Some of the remedies work.) On the other track, you have what I would call a Western medical system similar to what one would find in any advanced country. Unfortunately, the salaries of primary care physicians are quite low in comparison to salaries in Western countries. It is hard to attract good people into the medical profession. There is also no emphasis on preventative care to treat health problems early before they become chronic diseases.

    China has another surprising major healthcare challenge. Prosperity has brought better food to many people. Just as in the US, China now has an obesity problem. It is estimated that some 350,000,000 Chinese people are obese. Diabetes, hypertension, and other problems associated with being overweight plague this society. These people are always more vulnerable to bad outcomes if infected with Covid-19.

    When the Covid pandemic started, I was always skeptical of the statistics that China was providing to the World Health Organization. Elena said their form of totalitarian government allowed them to quickly lock down people and stop the spread of the disease.

     I pointed out to her the 750,000,000 people who lived in Third World China. My theory was and still is that there were massive deaths in this part of China never reported to international authorities.

   Now we arrive at the Covid situation in China now. As the old saying goes: "The cat is out of the bag." The whole world knows that China has a massive Covid-19 problem that is only going to get worse. They continue to rely on Chinese-produced vaccines that do not have the efficacy of Western vaccines. There isn't an aggressive vaccination program. The healthcare system does not have the capacity to handle the massive number of infected people that will come.

     There is going to be a high level of death. It will be a humanitarian crisis. Factories will close (The Tesla factory in Shanghai has already closed.) The Chinese economy will suffer grievously. Supply chains will be disrupted. If you need parts made in China, you might get a big shock. I will close with these prophetic words: "This is not going to have a happy ending."