Thanks for engaging in a proper argument instead of being a drive-by shooter. I don't want to come across like I'm some covid conspiracist, my comment was simply from the perspective of speculating what might be coming for the rest of the world in light of what is happening -- not what I recommend the Chinese government should ideally have done. From a public health perspective, I agree with flattening the curve, but what's actually playing itself out is closer to "let it rip" after the goverment did an 180-degree turn. In an ideal world they would have taken 3 months to vaccinate the population again with mRNA vaccines bought from the West and taken some other transitory measures, but that's not what happened. In that sense it's a moot point how many people will die because they've already made this decision. It's still worth asking then what it will imply for us in terms of new variants.

Hopefully the death toll will be small, but they're in uncharted waters. Most of the population has already been vaccinated with Chinese-made vaccines that are still somewhat effective against severe disease, so maybe it'l be less than 1%. On the other hand, with the medical system collapsing it could also be more than 1%. They could have definitely gone for a softer transition, but it's almost as if the government is now wanting to teach the demonstrators a lesson, so they can hold it up as a lesson afterwards "look What happens when you listen to the mob". A lot of old people were never vaccinated simply because they didn't see the need with the constant testing and tight restrictions. Instead of letting it rip, the government could have at least done a big vaccination drive among them, and announced they'd let loose a month later. When you think of it, it's not that crazy that Xi did a hard turn on purpose so he can afterwards save face.

As to your point 2, there is hopefully some cross-variant immunity, but at this point we'll just have to see.

Happy new year!