EXCERPT:
BHATTACHARYA: "Well, the Chinese followed what they call a zero-Covid policy. Zero-Covid means that whenever there was even a single case or very small number of cases, they would take draconian measures. They would lock down buildings. There was one story of a building where they locked the doors and the fire happened and people died inside trying to get out. They would do routine testing in enormous quarantine facilities. All of this effort essentially disrupting Chinese society, violating their civil rights on a mass scale. You know, they even had a drone floating around saying to people, 'Control your soul’s desire for freedom.' None of that worked. And the shocking thing is that they kept at it for so long. You know, a lot of public health authorities wanted something like that here in the United States, you know, not — with a smiley face, I guess. It was inevitable that this virus was going to infect basically everybody. It’s a highly infectious respiratory disease. Our efforts to try the control the spread of it, we don’t have a technology that does that. And finally, I think the Chinese authorities capitulated. The problem is they didn’t protect the elderly population. They’re still at high risk. And as you said earlier, Sean, there’s a lot of people in China that have never been infected before that are really at high risk. Their healthcare system is much more easily overwhelmed than ours is. That’s what we’re seeing now. It’s tragic. At this point, I just — there’s not much I can do other than to pray for the people of China because it’s absolutely a disaster what they’ve had to go through last year as a result of their from their move to zero Covid to essentially now letting it rip."