There was no mortality-free solution to covid.

Seeing multiple claims like "as many as 1 million could die of covid in China in the coming months" (https://www.ft.com/content/b44b2a11-9a8e-4676-9fce-ed2d33dc502a). So just to be clear: "only" 1m dying would be, in the scheme of things, a major accomplishment for China. I'll be surprised if the toll ends up below 2m, though I'm also skeptical we'll ever learn the true number.

For once I'm not really crapping on the CCP here. There was no mortality-free solution to covid. I wish they'd been more aggressive about vaccinating their elderly, and had made use of more protective foreign-developed vaxes, and avoided some of the more insane zero-covid excesses (now immortalized by the Urumqi fire). But any way they sliced it significant numbers were going to die, and the US is in zero position to criticize other (poorer) countries for mismanaging covid. Especially if they come in below our ~0.33%, which for China would be 4.6m deaths.

But the reality is I predict the Chinese, esp elderly, are in for a brutal few months - only a question of how brutal. Here's hoping I'm wrong. Covid is hard, sometimes I'm just wrong!

A relevant detail from the early Wuhan days of covid: most of the transmission will happen at home, ie, between family members, as it did then. This is why being more open to lockdown precautions will be of limited use: even Chinese people who aren't going to restaurants (much less raves etc...) aren't going to stop visiting family... Especially elderly family.