They get shit on for focusing so hard on zero-covid policy that alternative plans like vaccine drives were not prioritized. Now the government suddenly ended zero-covid policies without having said vaccinations in place and you have a huge undervaccinated population vulnerable in place.

Some of the big issues facing China:

• Sinovac vaccine is less efficient than western vaccines, most Chinese citizens only got 1-2 shots (sinovac needs 3 shots, with last being done recently for 80-90ish% protection vs severe disease)

• Extremely limited number of intensive care beds per 1000 citizens and China did not build this capability up in past two years due to belief in zero-covid.

• Sinovac halted or heavily reduced production of covid vaccine shots. Usage of foreign vaccines is utter anathema to the CCP.

All these issues mean that China was not ready to fully open up within a week. It's like the CCP panicked and failed to do due diligence. Had they done this over 3-12 months (depending on vaccine drive) then things would be a lot more manageable.

Edit: Had to remove a point about state media and their agenda because Reddit shadowbans it. If interested I recommend checking up on recent economist article that discusses the downsides of it.

> Some hospitals in Beijing have up to 80% of their staff infected, but many of them are still required to work due to staff shortages

At a certain point to provide needed healthcare you need essential workers to still show up when testing positive. Maybe even show up with mild to medium symptoms if their absence will cause more harm to health and safety.

If the choice is between no healthcare vs healthcare with infected workforce then I would choose the latter for critical cases. It will cause deaths but more would die if there was no one running needed ventilators to keep serious ill people alive.