[DiogenesKynikos]

Somehow this hasn't really sunk in in the West, but China basically ended its pandemic by April 2020.

There has been no sustained local transmission within China since then. There are small clusters of cases that occur when the virus somehow breaches the border protections (e.g., 3-week quarantine for all incoming passengers). There's a very quick reaction whenever this happens, and the outbreak is ended within days to weeks.

The Xi'an outbreak, with 2,000 cases in total, is the most serious outbreak China has had since April 2020. There are small cities in the US with more cases than that every day. Exponential growth is brutal, so China can remain at ultra-low numbers, as long as it detects and contains outbreaks early.

That's why there have been only a handful of deaths (contrary to the title of this thread, there have been a few reported deaths) since April 2020.

There are plenty of people here on Hacker News who either live in China or have friends/family there. It just seems to be the people who don't have any contact with the country who have a hard time believing what's going on in China. I sort of understand: China's pandemic experience has been so different from that of the West that it can be difficult to accept as reality.