Too much time has been wasted in China

The Omicron variants have produced new COVID-19 infection patterns around the world: in 2020 and 2021 there were infection waves coming and then gone in typically a month, but in 2022 Omicron infections drop from the peak, but stay much higher than in 2020/2021.  Sometimes it feels like a wave lasts two or more months.  Take HK as an example.  HK infections started up in June, 1K, peaked in Sept over 10K, only dropped to 5K two months later.  A reason may be that there are multiple Omicron variants circulating simultaneously, all able to infect and re-infect, so two or more waves overlap and pile up.

Since the worst in Shanghai passed in April 2022, almost every province in mainland China has been in a low-level COVID-19 wash, with national daily infections centering around 1K.  Recently the cases are slowly climbing above 2K, so local lockdowns and mass testing return in October.  Compared to March and April 2022 the situation is handled better this time, due to lessons from the Spring: the lockdown areas are now smaller, and testing easier.  But facts remain that economy suffers unnecessarily, people’s living suffers unnecessarily, and mass testing is still a huge waste of time, material, work, energy, and money and awfully polluting. 

More disappointing is the fact that China has so far failed to prepare the people for the inevitable DZ reversal.  The reversal doesn’t mean acting like the US at all, but it does mean significant relaxation of the lockdown and testing policies.  Because China has never gone anywhere near 0 in over 300 days this year, clearly DZ is a misnomer and not going to work: it has never been 0 in 2022 and will never be 0 in 2023.  At the same time GDP which could have grown 5% will be lucky to grow at 3% this year.  China’s official media justify DZ by saying it saves many more lives with a higher GDP growth than the US.  True, but irrelevant: China is not competing with the US and the world in 2020 or 2021 any more, but in 2022 and beyond.  The rest of the world has opened up, SE Asia, India, Africa, with faster economy growth than China and no repeat of the COVID-19 in 2020/2021.  DZ is putting China at a major disadvantage.  At the expense of the economy DZ is not even saving that many lives: the excess death in China in 2022 is likely >100K (1%), due to economic hardship, lack of medical care, and psychiatry problems.  In other words, DZ is simply trading one kind of deaths for another, except that DZ further leads to economy destruction and infringement on individual freedoms.  The government needs to ask: is China or Chinese so different from everybody else in the world? 

My 4/19/2022 blog laid out the reasons why China can absolutely do well without DZ and steps on how to prepare for the changes.  Which should have been done much earlier, but half a year later nothing of sort has been done. 

Illustrating this and the natural consequences is a major piece of news that many workers at the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China have quit and are now walking homes, some >100 km away (https://news.sina.com.cn/c/2022-11-01/doc-imqqsmrp4473042.shtml).   The background is that Foxconn has a huge factory with >100K workers in Zhengzhou, where like everywhere in China has had a burst of cases in October.  A few workers were positive, so the company is moving the infected and close contacts around while at the same time keeps the machines running.  This is what everybody else in the world is doing right now and a small experiment of how to live with COVID in China.  But many workers (30%?), who are negative, became so scared that they fled the factory. 

If the workers left because they were afraid of the lockdown (actual or pending), it would have been understandable and reasonable to leave.  But Foxconn due to its sheer size is doing things a bit differently than the rest of Zhengzhou and is still operating and not shutting down internally.  So (most of) the fear is not for lockdown but for COVID-19, which is terribly misplaced.  COVID-19 in 2022 is far from COVID-19 in 2020.  Assume most workers have got three COVID shots, and obviously most if not all are young, <50-year-old, then even if they get infected, few if any cases will be serious, and almost certainly no one will die.  Yet so many people are still so scared of COVID-19, unnecessarily, that they behaved rashly.  This is the fault of the government and the media wasting so much time not educating the public the right information, while spending all their time touting DZ that makes life miserable and destroys the economy.

China has wasted too much time and lost too much with DZ.  Many Chinese are against DZ, but many others are undoubtedly for DZ as well.  The transition will come, since who can tolerate DZ forever?  If you need to do it and everything is in place, the earlier the implementation, the better.  But without the right information and preparation, once the government pivots from DZ, there will be a huge amount of confusion and even resistance in the society, which will again be bumpy and costly.  

PS: There have been monthly excess deaths in the US, UK, and a few countries in 2022, certain months even >10%, with reported COVID-19 deaths accounting for only a small percentage.  Most countries including China don’t report monthly, so have to wait for the annual data after Dec 31.  We need to see whether this trend holds for the whole world and figure out the causes, which always takes time.  Some of the unaccounted for excess deaths may be untested COVID-19 deaths or due to long COVID-19, but most are likely not directly virus-related.  The disruption of economy and society by the pandemic, such as the healthcare system and loss of qualified personnel and services, could be an important factor. 

The consensus in the US, a few misgivings from doctors and scientists notwithstanding, is that the pandemic is over.  300-400 people continue to die everyday, but in effect it is the price the American public, society, and system have decided willing to pay: just living my life, too bad for the unlucky, the weak, and the old.  If the excess deaths are real, not some erroneous statistics, then the policies from 2020 to 2022 and beyond could have deeper consequences than meet the eyes. 

China is just the opposite: DZ for COVID-19.  But why isn’t DZ for everything else that is bad?  There may have been a consensus in 2020 and 2021 to control COVID-19, but there is really no consensus in 2022 that keep doing the same thing over and over is the best way going forward.  Some Chinese support DZ, some oppose it.  Yet things have changed dramatically in the > 2 years’ time, both in terms of the virus and the means to handle the disease.  DZ may reduce COVID-19 deaths, but its current implementation will amplify other deaths, bringing down the economy and everything else along the way.  If the aftereffects of COVID-19 are universal (no reason to think China is unique), then China is expected to have significant excess deaths too, over the 1% mark mentioned above. 

 

The 2022 Table Tennis World Team Championships

ITTF started the commercial WTT a couple of years back, almost the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic.  WTT is confusing and worse than the previous Opens format because it turns the venue background black, lighting dark, and camera angle lower and along the net.  A lot of time you lose one or both players in the picture when they are retrieving shots far away from the table, and you hardly see the ball spinning and curving off the paddles.  These shortcomings are mitigated during the World Team Championships at Chengdu, China, as there are multiple cameras from many angles, and the viewing area is vastly expanded.  This is expected since this is the signature table tennis event of the year.

On Oct 8, 2022 China and Japan met twice, at the Men’s Semi and later Women’s Final.  China won both (3:2 and 3:0), but there are plenty of noteworthy dramas, stories, and strategies.  First the Women’s Final.  The starting match of Chen Meng (CHN) vs Miyuu Kihara (JPN) is nothing to talk about, except that Japan not fielding the highest-ranked Hina Hayata was surprising.  Hayata played only once during the whole tournament and barely escaped with a win in the semi against Germany, so maybe she is injured or not at her best.  The second match between Wang Manyu and Mima Ito was much closer and the only competitive one.  The first three sets were hotly contested, with Ito attacking and Wang defending all the time: either Ito got a winner, or she made an error and lost the point.  Not sure if Ito had smashed THIS hard non-stop for so long before.  Wang Manyu being much taller and covering a much bigger space helped her returning a lot of hard shots, winning two out of three.  Eventually Ito got tired, Wang attacked, and the fourth set was settled early on.   The third match, Sun Yingsha vs Miyu Nagasaki, however, was the biggest letdown.  It started OK, but the level of plays dropped so quickly that by the third set both players won by silly mistakes gifted by the opponents, capped and ended with a awful service return error by Nagasaki.  Nagasaki played below her level since this was her first final and high leverage match, and one wonders what if Hayata was there.     

Now to the Men’s Semi.  The biggest story for casual audience is Tomokazu Harimoto won two points, beating Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong.  It is interesting to dissect how Harimoto won, especially against Fan.  Harimoto should be 10 cm taller and much stronger than when he came up in 2017.  He used to be strong and quick with backhand but weak in forehand.  One can clearly see Harimoto growing in body size and improving in techniques.  So a mistake would be to use the old strategy against a new Harimoto, which was what China did there.  The new Harimoto no longer rushes his backhand attacks and is a more balanced, rallying-type player.  His forehand is still the weaker side, but since he is taller, he can handle the high arching shots better and defend more space from his right side.  Quite a few times Fan hit hard to Harimoto’s forehand.  If Harimoto counterlooped he likely would make errors and lose, so he simply blocked it back, and Fan was caught off-guard and hurt by his own power coming towards him, hence returned the ball long off the table.  The match was decided by the final moments at the 4^th and 5^th sets with the smallest margin, so this forehand strategy made a win vs loss difference.  It must be noted as well that Harimoto had better luck, net balls at both sets at the final moments.  He had the same luck, net/edge against Wang Chuqin at the 4^th set too, helping turn 7:9 to 11:9. 

Another story is how Wang Chuqin got the final point for China, after a loss earlier, in his own, first ever, maximal pressure event.  Wang Chuqin’s weakness is his forehand rallying ability.  If you do three forehand exchanges with him, he will make an error at the fourth.  This is how everybody plays him, sending balls to his left.  He also tends to retreat from the table more than his teammates.  It is OK in normal times since he has power, but at crucial matches when your opponents are playing well and you are not, being too far away from the table will make things going downhill faster.  Wang Chuqin was sending forehands long all the time during the Harimoto match for no good reason, even not in forehand counters, so he was too tense.  But he still got his chance at the end of the 4^th set, until bad luck struck. 

Hence it was truly a big question mark how Wang Chuqin could handle the 5^th and final match against Togami Shunsuke.  Things didn’t look bright when Shunsuke rushed to a 9:4 lead in the first set.  Wang was still hitting forehands long, and Shunsuke was more motivated and forehand blazing.  Shunsuke is tall and fast, runs a lot, has strong loops from both wings.  But, he has only one gear, the speedy gear, and Wang has an upper hand in serve and serve return.  Sensing a loss at 4:9, Wang settled down and cut down his forehand errors.  He used serve and serve return to win a few easy points, then prioritized his backhand to defend Shunsuke’s loops.  Wang’s backhand is very strong because he can defend, change speed, and turn defense to offense instantly.  By improving his own level and Shunsuke dropping his, Wang escaped with a win 12:10 in the first set.  Wang continued this backhand-oriented strategy in the 2^nd and 3^rd set.  An animated Shunsuke was able to match Wang till the midpoint at both sets, but he did much more running and looping and got tired afterwards, and the final scores reflected that.  A conclusion is that Wang Chuqin needs to improve his forehand stability, but he has proven, mentally and physically, to be dependable at crucial moments.

The biggest story, however, should have been Ma Long, scoring a point against Mizuki Oikawa as the 3^rd single.  This might be the last World Team Championships for Ma Long.  In the 21^st century we have witnessed true greats in various sports playing and now their retiring, and Ma Long is one of them.  Ma Long at 33 is a shell of his prime, and he has a glaring weakness to his right, forehand side that practically yells “Hit me”.  Everybody, from matches earlier, India, Sweden, etc, I mean, everybody, constantly attacked his right table corner, almost sad to see.  Oikawa was no exception, and he did it perfectly in the first set, scoring half his points off the strategy.  Oikawa would send a ball down the line to Ma’s right.  Ma either missed it completely, or when he returned the shot, it was so weak that Oikawa easily hit it to Ma’s backhand open court to win the point. 

How did Ma Long respond to win the next three sets?  For the 2^nd and 3^rd sets, Ma upped his backhand exchange pressure to Oikawa’s backhand so that Oikawa could no longer hit the ball down the line: since the ball to his backhand came fast and long, if he changed direction regardless, it would go long down the line.  This strategy largely neutralized Oikawa’s attack on Ma’s well-known weakness.  And Ma had the advantage in the serve and serve return department, and his forehand cross table.  In the 4^th set Ma clearly improved his form, and he now hit straight winners even when Oikawa attacked his right side.  With this ability there was nothing Oikawa could do.

On the next day, Oct 9, 2022, China and Germany met for the Men’s Final, featuring the same lineups from the Semis: why change when you win?  The difference was Ma Long became the 2^nd single, and Wang Chuqin the 3^rd.  Qiu Dang won the only set against China for Germany, vs Ma Long.  While the results would have been the same, a safer plan for China should have been picking Wang against Qiu.  Technique-wise a left-handed shakehander (Wang) is literally the worst possible nightmare for a right-handed penholder (Qiu).  Ma had the first three sets against Qiu closer than against Oikawa, even though Ma was leading most of the way.  Again, from the very first point of the match Qiu attacked Ma’s right side, relentlessly.  Ma tried to pin Qiu down at his backhand side, but surprisingly Qiu’s backhand is up to the task, even better than Ma’s, so Ma won by smaller margins, with his advantage at serve and serve return area.  Only in the fourth set did Ma find his former form and begin ripping winners from his right side, same as in the Oikawa contest.  It seems that Ma Long needs three sets’ warmup for his movement, then the match became a runaway train.  But playing style-wise Wang Chuqin could have an easier time against Qiu.  

With a better luck or the absence of bad luck in the Semi Fan Zhendong would have avoided the first loss of his career at the World or Olympics Team events.  No biggies though, as almost everybody, including the best of the best in history, has lost in Teams.  Waldner lost many times.  Liu Guoliang lost two points in 2000 and China lost as a result.  Kong Linghui also lost two points, saved only by Liu Guozheng, in 2001.  Wang Liqin, Ma Lin, Ma Long, Zhang Jike all lost once to Boll.   The only world champion-caliber player who had never lost at the World or Olympics Teams, I believe, is Wang Hao.  But Ma Long hasn’t lost a Team match for like 10 years or more, and he has played till the finals in all these years.  This is as remarkable as his other achievements, including 3 straight World Singles titles and 2 Olympics Singles Gold medals.  Ma Long no longer has the energy to play the 5^th match, which is why he should only be the 3^rd single, unless China thinks 3 and done.  Everybody knows how to beat Ma Long: doable these days, but only if you can execute that winning strategy against Ma’s countermeasures.  A bit like the old Waldner, vulnerable, but still hard to beat.  Or Roger Federer after 2017.  As one ages, the legs weaken the first, and Federer could no longer run to his forehand side as much and fast as he wished.  So he was more content to stay at his backhand side.  As a result, he was no longer rattled by too many shots to his left and was ready to do it all day long.  With this change in mentality he started to beat Nadal on hard courts since Federer’s backhand no longer rushed and made as many mistakes as before.  Nadal getting older and slower contributed to that effect too.

Christine Guthrie and thoughts beyond

Christine Guthrie passed away on July 1, 2022 at the age of 77, after a 30-years-long battle with cancer.  She was a researcher at UCSF who arguably contributed the most to our mechanistic understanding of mRNA splicing, a fundamental process in eukaryotes.  She was well known and respected among biologists and loved by her trainees, many of who are now authorities in their own fields.  Journals such as Cell and RNA have published obituaries and tributes, and a memorial symposium will be held at UCSF on Oct 28.  Her contribution to science was immense.

I had seen her and heard her talks at meetings.  Now I can’t miss the fact that she seemed to have no Chinese trainees (students from China or ABCs), as none of the people writing about her are Chinese, nor were any Chinese mentioned in their or her writings.  This is a very surprising and truly unique situation and makes one wonder why.  Perhaps UCSF is an elite institution and she was an elite scientist?  But this is obviously not a valid explanation.  UCSF has had many Chinese trainees, as well as other elite schools, and almost all, if not all Nobel Prize winners, and other prominent scientists, in the US in the last 40 years have had Chinese in their labs.  That is why Guthrie’s case is so peculiar.  A few causes can be speculated.

The first is that Guthrie was 6-foot-tall, and talked straight and tough and joked (she was kind and supportive at the same time), which might be a minor shock to the newly arrived Chinese seeking labs right away at UCSF.  The first impression being tough might have been too intimidating for them even trying to get in, as her being kind would have to come later when you settled down in her lab.   The second is that a few of her students took a long 7 years to get a PhD, which likely also presented a warning to later students.  But these two reasons are unlikely the major ones.

The third is that Guthrie did her most important work in the 80s.  At that time Chinese students were only beginning to come to the US.  There were simply fewer Chinese then, compared to late 1990s and afterwards.  The fourth and likely the most explanation, however, is her experimental model, yeast genetics.  It doesn’t escape my notice that few Chinese, in the US or China, use budding or fission yeast as their experimental models.   And this actually has something to do with the third cause above, too.

Since the mid-1990s genomics has started to overtake biological research.  Previous work feasible only in single cells like bacteria and yeast was suddenly doable and became easier and easier in multicellular organisms such as worms, flies, and mammals.  This trend has continued to this date.  The Chinese newcomers clearly saw the changes and opportunities and followed the fads.  Yeast became old-fashion and got ignored as a choice for PhD studies.  So Guthrie having no Chinese trainees was indeed an oddity but not entirely out of the blue, as many yeast genetics labs also had few Chinese.  Ultimately, it is a big loss for Chinese, and a big loss for yeast genetics as well.