China’s National Bureau of Statistics warned in May of last year that “increasing elderly population will reduce the supply of labor force and increase the burden on families’ elder care and the pressure on the supply of basic public services… The aging of the population has further deepened, and in the coming period, (we will) continue to face pressure for the long-term balanced development of the population.” Decades of the One Child Policy have created a gender imbalance, and much fewer workers and a much larger group of aging and elderly who need care.

I suppose if an autocratic regime were cynical and cruel enough, they could see Covid-19 as an opportunity to thin the herd of senior citizens, to alleviate the country’s mounting costs of elder care in future years.

As I wrote back in December, “never mind straight answers on the origin of Covid-19 in China; we can’t even get straight answers on the status of Covid-19 in China right now. Everyone in public health and international diplomacy knows it. And just about everyone averts their eyes from the nonsensically incredible official statistics from Beijing, because they’re hoping that ignoring the current lie will make the Chinese government more honest in the future.”