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Nov 30, 2022Liked by Far & Near

Thank you for the article!! I was just thinking about this. When I saw the front page of the guardian with protest pictures that are clearly identifiable, I emailed them asking them to consider potential repercussions and choosing other ones. By the time I checked again, the pictures had changed. I’m not sure if it was due to my email but just wanted to really say thank you for writing this!!

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Thank you for expressing your concern to the newsroom!

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In 40 years, I have never found Western media trustworthy

As the subject of two front page news stories on two continents, I know first hand how unscrupulous they are when looking for, or creating stories their editors like.

Their treatment of China's Covid policy, for example, has been uniformly negative for years, despite overwhelming Chinese support for it.

Hence the almost hysterical attempt to puff up 600 scattered protesters – in a country that hosts 500 protests every day.

Hence the equally desperate attempt to disguise the immense popular support for Dynamic Covid Zero.

82% of Chinese support Dynamic Covid Zero, DCZ, because, after 3 Covid years,

1. US GDP grew 3.4%, with 1,000,000 Covid deaths and 3,000,000 Long Covids.

2. China's GDP grew 13.8%, with 7,000 deaths and 38,000 Long Covids.

3. Chinese life expectancy rose to 77.1 years, US fell to 76.1 years.

4. 72% of Chinese participate in the labor force, vs. 62% of Americans.

5. America has 100 new Covid cases every day per million people, China has 20 .

6. 0.0003 deaths/million Chinese, 0.8/million Americans, though Chinese testing catches every case.

7. 95% of China deaths are unvaccinated. In other words, the inactivated vaccines used in China seem to be doing what they are designed to do -prevent serious illness and death.

8. Free testing, treatment and hospitalization.

9. Fewer than 10% have been quarantined.

10. "Long Covid is a $3.7 trillion drag on the U.S. economy equal to 17% of pre-pandemic economic output”. Harvard economist David Cutler says cost rivals the Great Recession**.

As a photojournalist, you know that cropping – in composition or post production – is a powerful tool, and easily abused.

Foreign media abused that tool in this case. Don't encourage them.

*https://chinadatalab.ucsd.edu/viz-blog/how-unpopular-is-covid-zero/

**https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/why-long-covid-could-be-the-next-public-health-disaster.html

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