Is the pandemic starting all over again after three years of COVID?

Okay. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Good evening. All right. Good to see you again. All right. So, we have a lot to go over tonight. So, I hope I've gathered everything in my slides. So, by now, you've heard that there's a major COVID outbreak in China, right, happening across the country. And it happened at a time that's kind of very interesting. Beijing just announced the 10 new measures to officially relax zero COVID. So, then some Chinese declared the pandemic is finally over. And then, because there's no massive testing and there's no more lockdowns, but then, instead of being locked down or locked up by the government and being forced to do COVID testing by the government, people are now locking themselves up at home and paying out of their own pocket to do COVID testing. So, some Chinese are now proclaiming, after three years, the pandemic finally began. I thought that's a very ironic statement. So, the panic, confusion, and chaos that we've seen in Beijing brought back the memories from three years ago, that's December 2019, when the pandemic first started. I can't help but ask the question, are we starting all over again? Three years ago, we didn't pay attention when it first broke out in China. Now, we cannot afford to make the same mistake. And I think it's very important to monitor what's happening in China to avoid the same disaster. Because the CCP doesn't disclose truthful information about the outbreak, then it's up to us, our collective effort to gather information and share that among ourselves. Okay. So, in Beijing, stores and restaurants in the busy downtown area are quiet, streets are empty. Do I have slides to show you? Here we go. Yep. So, this is a shopping mall. This is the street. The government continued to show low cases. I mean, it's ironic. If you look at the government reported cases, it's like in the thousands. And that just doesn't make sense. Nobody believed that number. And I think it also knows its number is not credible. So, it stopped reporting cases by district. It just shows the total number by the metropolitan area. But anyways, if you read the online posts, people are reporting that their families, their friends, neighbors, colleagues are sick. And the most common symptom is high fever. And not just ordinary people, celebrities also got sick from COVID. The founder of Sohu, Zhang Zhaoyang, got sick and he posted on his social media account. And one community worker told CNN that in her Beijing neighborhood office, which is the grassroots CCP organization or the office that manages the community, of the 24 staff members, 21 got sick. And roads and highways, here you have a report. Maybe I can make this bigger. So, here you have a picture and a news report from official Chinese state media, showing that roads and highways are blocked by people who refuse to let people from high incidence regions enter. So, Chinese society isn't prepared for this type of massive outbreak. And it created a number of problems. According to a speech given by the Deputy Director of National Health Commission on December 15th, China has only 3.6 ICU beds per 100,000 people. And we compare that to, for example, Germany, the country that has the highest number of ICU beds per 100,000 people in the world, they have 28. And the US has 22. Japan has 14. China has 3.6. So, the medical system is not sufficient to handle a massive outbreak. And the numbers I gave you for Germany, United States and Japan were the 2020 number. So, over the past three years, these countries have increased, have beefed up their ICU beds during the pandemic. So, for example, in the US, like in this January, we had 20 million cases in January. It was high. It resulted in 19 states reaching 85% alert line for ICU bed occupancy. But then eventually the wave passed. So, it was at 85%. But it didn't reach the full capacity back in January. And Hong Kong is another example. Its ICU bed per 100,000 people is 7.1, twice as many as mainland. And half of Hong Kong people received the Pfizer vaccine. During the outbreak in February, many hospitals in Hong Kong were forced to set up tents outside the emergency rooms to temporarily house critically ill patients. So, I mean, Hong Kong is part of China. And the fact that its hospitals did not have the capacity to handle the outbreak when it has double the ICU units, when half of its people have gotten the Pfizer vaccines. I mean, all of that just shows you the situation in China. So, the first problem China has is the lack of ICU beds. And worse, medical professionals are hard hit. And hospitals have become a major source of contamination or virus spreading, shall we say. Doctors at a large public hospital in Beijing told Reuters that some hospitals in Beijing have staff infection rates as high as 80%. Many doctors and nurses who are positive with COVID are told to continue working because of staff shortages. As a result, non-COVID patients got COVID at the hospitals. And in one hospital, 40% of the patients became positive. So, hospital has become a major source of the outbreak. And also, because of the shortage of medical professionals, patients who suffer from other diseases like cancer are not getting proper treatment because of the shortage of medical staff. So, on December 11th, Beijing and Guangzhou City have asked retired medical professionals to return to work. And they've also asked the medical school students to help. But the medical students in at least six medical schools have protested publicly for this. I have a video. This one, here we go. I don't know if I can hear this. Sorry, let me play this video. Here's a video. Can you guys hear this? Yeah, so these people are students. They want three things. They want equal pay. A lot of them have been working in hospitals, but they were not paid as the medical professionals. And some were not provided the right protective gears. And also, they were forced to work when they're tested positive. So, these students in at least six medical schools that I could document and collect have protested. And also, there's another case that happened that also have made these students nervous. On December 13th, a 23-year-old graduate student from Sichuan University who was interning in the pediatric surgery unit at the West China Hospital, he died, and his death sparked public outcry. The student was sick with COVID, and he continued to work. His teacher asked him to prepare for surgery the next day. And he told the teacher that he had fever. And the teacher said, I'm not feeling well either myself. But that night, the student suffered a cardiac arrest and died. And people who are familiar with the case said that the student had had COVID for three days. After he died, the school, which is also the hospital that was affiliated with the school, pretended to rescue him for a day and didn't announce his death until the 15th. So, one Chinese netizen summarized the predicament of Chinese people like this. He wrote, he said, when I said I'm sick, they said I'm not sick. When I said I'm feeling miserable, they ignored me. When I died, they pretend I'm still alive. When I was alive, they paid me very little. However, after I died, they used the most expensive equipment trying to resuscitate me. I thought that was very well written, but it's very sad. All right. So, that's the issue number one, you know, shortage of medical professionals and the dire situation in the hospitals. The second problem is the shortage of OTC drugs, namely ibuprofen type of drugs that treat fever. And we've seen long lines of patients waiting outside fever clinics or hospitals in China. Many of them want to just get Tylenol or ibuprofen. China's medical system is different from the West. It doesn't rely on private physician's clinics. So, people go to hospitals to see doctors or get medications. In the West, you could call a doctor, talk to him, and he can send a prescription to your pharmacy. And you could go pick it up at your own convenience. But in China, you have to go to the hospital in person to do this. And that's why we see patients stood in cold weather outside for hours just to see a doctor and just to get some medication. And so, you may say, well, but why can't they just go to the pharmacies to get Tylenol? Well, it's because they're all sold out. During zero COVID, China's policy controls OTC drugs. If you buy common cold drugs or, you know, Tylenol or these OTC drugs that treat fever, the government, you have to report, you have to let the government know, and then chances are your health code will turn yellow or red. So, that's why a lot of people didn't prepare OTC drugs at home, or they ran out during zero COVID. And when the control was lifted a week ago, right, after the new policy came out, some Chinese started hoarding these OTC drugs. And the prices increased significantly, and the drugs are sold out. Even some hospitals in Beijing don't have them. And Chinese are now calling friends and family living outside China to help. I read in Chinese media that in Box Hill, one of the largest Chinese communities outside Melbourne, Australia, several pharmacies were sold out of ibuprofen. And in Hong Kong, two salespeople at a pharmacy said that stocks of ibuprofen in the city's inventory were very low. So, I don't know if we'll see that happen in the United States or Canada, but I don't know. But I think, I thought it's very interesting that Australia has already affected Melbourne, Australia. So, I saw an online post in which a Chinese netizen pleaded with the government by saying that, we were given free COVID tests every day for months. Why can't you provide us with free ibuprofen? And ibuprofen costs much less than COVID tests. It's sad, isn't it? So, that's the second problem, the lack of OTC drugs. And if you think about it, that probably wouldn't happen elsewhere, right? And the third problem is a dreadful one. Due to the high number of deaths, Beijing doesn't have the capacity to handle the remains of the deceased. All funeral homes have maxed out their capacity. Some have staffs who are sick with COVID. And there's a woman, maybe I can show this. Where is my chart? Oh, here it is. This is the students protesting at Anhui Medical School. They say they refuse being threatened. They demand the same payment as the doctors. These are medical school students. And here's a post about people can't buy medicines in Beijing. And here's a post. For those of you who read Chinese, maybe I can make this bigger. Here we go. No? Yeah, this one is better. So, this poor woman, her mother-in-law passed away that day, and she called the medical emergency line. And there are 10,000 people on hold waiting. And so, she has called everywhere. She called the police. She called a hospital. All the hospitals, the morgue have maxed out. All the funeral homes do not have capacity to take anything in. So, this woman basically panicked and asked what to do. Because she cannot even find a vehicle to transport the remain. And then she does not know where to send it. And this is not just one post. There are multiple, a lot of people who have similar situations. And here I have a video. This is a video showing a person saying cars of vehicles lining up outside the Baobaoshan Cemetery or funeral home in Beijing. And this person is saying that these cars have been here since the day before. And again, all these cars, supposedly with remains of the deceased, line up outside the funeral homes or cemeteries waiting to be cremated. Yeah, and that's in Beijing. And some say these people have to wait days to get a chance. So, Radio Free Asia and Epoch Times called the Baobaoshan Cemetery, which is the largest in Beijing. They called it the Baobaoshan and Tongzhou funeral homes. Let me just come back. And both replied that all their incinerators, before I get into the numbers, I say most Chinese opt for cremation because it's cheaper and only a small number of wealthy people can buy land for burials. And on December 13th, a staff member from the Beijing Eastern Hospital posted on Weibo that due to increased mortality in Beijing, waiting time for cremation is at least five to seven days. And Beijing has a serious problem of dealing with the remains. And so, reporters from Radio Free Asia and the Epoch Times called these funeral homes or cemeteries and asked about the waiting time. And both got replies saying that their incinerators are burning 24 hours a day nonstop, and there's at least a five to seven day delay. And so, that brings us to one question. What is the real fatality or mortality rate in Beijing right now? How many people actually died in the past several weeks in Beijing due to COVID? So, Radio Free Asia estimated that we don't have official numbers, so we can only gather these numbers to get an idea. So, Radio Free Asia estimated that Beijing has 12 funeral homes with a total of 90 incinerators, and that's the official numbers. If they're all burning at full capacity, they can cremate 4,000 bodies a day. In 2018, at a press conference on the mass mourning services for the Qiming Festival in Beijing, a deputy director of Beijing's Civil Affairs Bureau said that the number of cremations in Beijing in 2018 was about 100,000. So, if you divided that by the number of days, so that means Beijing on a daily basis has a daily mortality rate of about 300, actually less than 300, at most 300 per day. So, currently, if the incinerators perform at full capacity, which is 4,000, and it's still not enough to handle all the deceased right now, that means Beijing's mortality has increased at least 13 times, if not more. That just gives people some indication of the mortality rate, because the Chinese government doesn't give us any actual data. And Baidu's online search for the word funeral has increased 170 times in recent days. So, you see the peak at the end, that's just in December. It's the search for funeral homes all of a sudden, you know, shoot up. Now, the other thing I want to talk about is we've always heard experts telling us that the symptoms omicron causes are mild, if there's any, right? Some don't have symptoms. And fatality rate is low. But I think people should study China's real fatality rate here during this outbreak to get a better understanding of omicron, because omicron has now grown into a big family of 300 variants. And it's hard to say that they're all mild in symptoms. And the reason why I say this is there's another case that involves the death of a student, and this student is in Wuhan. And he didn't leave school because a lot of the colleges have already let students to go home early. But this student did not leave the school. Here it is. And he was studying for his graduate school admission exam in the dormitory, and he got COVID and died. And here are the online posts, right? Here's people. But if you search this hashtag, you know, graduate student passed out due to COVID at school, it tells you it's not available. So the regime has, the great censor has removed all content related to this case. And people are saying, why? Why is Beijing so concerned with this case? And then people relate this to the other student, the medical school student who was 23 years old who died from COVID. You know, of course, that guy had fever. We don't know if this young man had fever also. But so within a week, you have two young, healthy male who died from COVID. And so people are really asking, you know, the fatality rate, the mortality rate of this outbreak. And particularly, you know, when Beijing doesn't want the public to know about them, you know, does that mean that Beijing knows something that we don't? So I call on public health professionals to keep an eye on the situation in China. And today, the U.S. embassy and consulates in China canceled all routine visa services in China, with the exception of some previously scheduled appointments, but only for the Shanghai consulate, only for the consulate in Shanghai. But all other visa services are canceled, and all previously scheduled interviews or appointments are canceled. So, and if you look at their website, the U.S. mission to China has been reducing the service daily or adjusting their services daily from the 12th of this month in the past four days. And then today on the 15th, it just canceled all appointments except a few in Shanghai. And it's the same, not just the U.S. consulate, same with Japan and Germany. So I think these countries are watching the situation in China. And then because the Chinese government do not disclose the real situations, some data scientists in China have used the search volume of keywords such as fever or fever drugs on Baidu and mapped out the trajectory of the outbreak in China by localities. And he was able to pinpoint that the outbreak has actually started in mid-November. And he said that Beijing is actually the first major city that has entered this mass outbreak, and that the time of the mass outbreak was November. He actually could pinpoint that. I'll share you with the links because he really provided all the details of his methodologies. And he also referenced the outbreak, the data, the same data for Taiwan and Hong Kong. And so he, I thought it's very well done, very detailed. So I'll provide the links. So his projection is as of December 9th, China already has 240 million people who has COVID. And maybe I can show you with his, here's his projection. He has actually projected, if you look at his, the website, I'm going to scroll down. Yeah, this is just the website, his methodology. But here's his projection. So he listed, the first column is the cities, close this, the cities, and then the peak, the date when the first wave will arrive. So for example, Beijing, the third line, right, 29%, it's like 29% of the people have already got it. The peak will be December 16th, and the end of the first wave will be January 5th. So if you look at this projection, and here's his update on the 13th. So let's look at his latest update, his 14th. So his projection is by localities. So you see how at the very late, it's 2023, April 20th. So that will be the end of the outbreak, as you know, according to his model. And yeah, so that's his prediction, April 20th. And then his today, December 15, Beijing is the first line. So what it says is, the peak will arrive, the peak of the first wave will be 2022, December 16. And it will end on January 12. And then he projected, so far, 31.7% of the people have already got it. Okay, so let me come back. Okay, here we go. So what I want to say is, the Omicron strain that's prevalent in China is the Bq.1 or the Bq.1.1 It first appeared in July in Nigeria. And by October, it had already attracted widespread attention from the global scientific communities. And the Germans gave it a name. I think, I don't know if I pronounced it right. It's called the Cerberus. And it's the, I think, according to the, is it a Greek mythology? It's the three-headed monster that guards the gate of the underworld. So some call it the Haunt of Hell. So it has this terrible name. And Chinese translated the variant as the Haunt of Hell. So I guess that's also part of the panic. But the data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States has shown that as of December 10th, these two variants, the Bq.1 and the Bq.1.1, were by far the dominant strains of COVID in the U.S. and accounting for a combined 68% of all cases. And also in the U.S., COVID cases has risen drastically in the past weeks. It has risen almost 50% in the week ending December 7th from the week before. And also in a new study published in the scientific journal Cell, researchers from Columbia University and the University of Michigan warned that the Omicron variant, this Bq.1 and Bq.1.1, the Haunt of Hell, and also two other smaller variants, were the most resistant variants to date. So with that said, I think we should keep a very close eye on Beijing, on the situation in China, because we don't want to repeat what happened three years ago, exactly December 2019, when the outbreak broke out in China and the rest of the world didn't pay attention. I'm not a medical scientist, so I cannot talk about the scientific aspect of the virus. But just judging from what I see in China, again, the Chinese government is not telling us everything that's happening in China, in Beijing. And because of that, we need to be particularly vigilant. So with that, I wrap up my presentation. All right, let's see if people have any questions. Okay. Wow. Okay. Well, I got a lot of comments today. Does death not reported by the CCP really matter? It matters because it's, you know, for scientists to keep track of, you know, to have real data of the outbreak. I think that it matters, right, from the pandemic prevention perspective. From Sir Humphrey, highly thanks for keeping us up to date on all the issues in China. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Let's see. Wow, I got a lot of... From Kenwell, Seti, thank you. From Venkat, why is WHO not working with Chinese government to collect data on these dangerous variants? I don't know. But the last that we've heard from the WHO is they said that the outbreak has already started before the Chinese government announced ending the zero COVID. Because some Chinese believe that, oh, it all happened because we ended zero COVID. So they thought that zero COVID was a good thing. But the WHO came out to say, well, actually, you know, this outbreak already started way before you ended zero COVID. So that's the last thing I heard from WHO related to the situation in Beijing. All right. Thank you, Dieter. All right. If you guys... I hope this is helpful information. That's all for today. And I will keep you guys updated on this. But thank you for joining me. Okay. All right. Enjoy the rest of your day or evening. Bye-bye.