China has fewer Covid-rated emergency beds now than they did in 2020. Way more quarantine camps, way less in the way of emergency room beds. But the quarantine camps aren't set up to care for the most critically ill.

China could have announced that they were going to gradually reopen months ago. They could have done it in a phased way, building temporary hospitals (like they did back in 2020) and moving extra doctors and nurses from provinces still locked down to ease the transition in the area. Then, once the situation is stabilized they move to the next province. If they started with the most economically important provinces and saved the most politically sensitive for last they could have gotten everything they wanted out of it.

Instead, they held on to the lockdowns until something snapped. If the protests didn't happen then the horrible economic numbers would have. America is importing something like 40% less year over year. Strategic monopolies are being lost. Unemployment is way up, especially among recent graduates.

The problem isn't too soon or too late. The problem is if they were prepared for it or not. The only reason why they weren't prepared for it is because they didn't do the work while they had the chance.

There are people freaking the fuck out in China because they have been lied to for years about how bad it is in the rest of the world. It's such horrible whiplash to go from "everyone is dying but you because we have protected you" to "bro, it's just a flu". If you believe the Chinese government then of course you want the policy to continue because they told you that Covid is gonna kill everyone and Zero Covid is the only answer. If you really internalized that for years then how could you ever accept "lol, no biggie".

Despite officially hitting targets to vaccinate everyone, a majority of the elderly never got vaccinated. They only approved the more effective mRNA vaccines this month because they had been trying to strongarm the pharma companies to hand over the mRNA tech. They don't have the beds in hospitals prepared. They don't have a ramp up in doctors and nurses. It is too soon because they shit the bed in the planning department, but it was always going to be too soon because it really looks like the very tippy top of the CPC wanted to have covid lockdown powers forever. Unprecedented control over the movements of the people? The ability to turn anyone's code red at any time thus forcing them to come in for testing? The ability to put people in 'quarantine' that is identical to prison, only for your own good? Regular testing that just was between 1% and 2% of the entire Chinese economy that you can skim off the top from? It's a pretty sweet gig if you can get it. But, that just got in the way of unwinding before important bits started snapping and they couldn't stall any longer.