I Don't Know Anyone in China Who Has Had Covid

A graph showing active covid cases in China. It goes up to a peak of 60K in February 2020, then comes down sharply, and from March or April 2020 it basically hovers around 0, continuing to stay basically at 0 all the way through the end of the graph (Dec 2021). Screenshot from worldometer, taken December 26, 2021.

I'm in Shanghai, China. I've been living in China since 2013, and I've been literally stuck here not leaving the country since the start of the pandemic. 

I read the news, and I talk to relatives in the US, and things related to the pandemic are just so completely different here than in other countries. Like people ask me "are you guys back to work yet?" and like, I was back to work in the office in February 2020.

I guess the best way to sum it up is this: I don't know anyone in China who has had COVID-19. Nope, not a one. None of my friends, none of my husband's family members (my husband is Chinese), none of my coworkers. In the many WeChat groups I am in, with hundreds of members (mostly mom groups for international women living in China), not a single person has mentioned they had covid or their kids had covid or anything. (WeChat is a social media app that everyone in China uses for texting and group chats.)

Ah, wait, with 1 exception: In January 2020, I saw someone in a big WeChat group share a screenshot of a text conversation- it said "there is a SARS outbreak in Wuhan." Yes, back then we didn't have the word COVID-19; we didn't even have the words "novel coronavirus"- they called it SARS, because Chinese people remember SARS from 2003. And this person in the WeChat group said she has a friend in Wuhan who had 2 relatives die, and they are not allowed to talk about it. The moderator of the WeChat group said "thank you for the warning. We cannot discuss this any more in this group though, because some group chats have been shut down for 'spreading rumors'." This was back when the government of Wuhan was still trying to cover it up, which was obviously a really bad way to handle it. Within a few weeks, the national government of China stepped in and turned things around with strategies that actually work, such as mass testing, quarantines, and tracking people's travel histories.

So yeah, other than that, I have never heard anyone in China talking about "oh my friend so-and-so has covid" or anything along those lines. No, I don't know anyone in China who has had covid. All of us have been affected by the pandemic-control restrictions, but no, no one actually had covid.

I know people who were in home quarantine for weeks at the beginning of the pandemic, because of their travel history. I have a colleague who is from Hubei province, and she was going home for Chinese New Year 2020, and actually passed through the Wuhan train station just days before the whole city was closed. When she came back to Shanghai, she worked from home for 3 weeks, I think- because everyone who had returned from "high-risk" areas was required to stay home for at least 14 days. (She did 3 weeks just to be sure.) Later, her father came to live with her, and when he arrived, she had to do another 14 days of quarantine at her home with him.

I know moms from the WeChat groups, who live in northern China in cities near Beijing, and they complain about being in lockdown again. Seems like those areas have had several "outbreaks"- but in China, an "outbreak" is like, a dozen cases, and then wide-ranging lockdowns and testing.

I know someone who lives in a city that had an outbreak, and then the city required every single person living there to get covid-tested. Millions of people. She actually had to get tested 3 or 4 times over the course of several weeks. (I don't know if the entire city got tested 3 or 4 times, or if the later tests were more focused on smaller areas.)

I know someone who works at Shanghai Disneyland, who was there on October 31, the night that every single person in Disneyland and Disneytown had to get covid-tested because it was discovered that a traveler who had been in Disneyland on October 30 tested positive for covid. (All tests came back negative.) I saw videos shared on WeChat, the pandemic staff covered head-to-toe in their white hazmat suits, sitting at tables administering covid tests to one person after another after another, and the Disney fireworks show in the background.

I know people who have entered China, who were required to do the 14-day quarantine. Everyone who enters mainland China is required to get covid-tested AND ALSO to quarantine. We had neighbors who came back to China, and the management of our apartment complex put a sticker across their apartment door so that it would be obvious if anyone opened it, and set up a security camera facing the door. For this quarantine, you CANNOT OPEN THE DOOR. After 14 days, they got out of quarantine and the camera was removed. I also know people who had to do the quarantine at a quarantine hotel instead of at home. One of my friends was required to stay in the quarantine hotel for 21 days. He was allowed to open his door to get food that was dropped off by the quarantine staff, and also to get covid-tested. Had to get covid-tested several times over the course of the 21 days. (All were negative.) He said the food wasn't very good, and the internet connection was awful because 300 people were all trying to use it at the same time.

And there have been international families that got stuck outside of China for months or even a year- I have heard of lots of people in this situation. In March 2020, China banned all foreigners from entering the country- and that ban was in place for about 6 months I think. (And now they let foreigners in, but there are lots of rules about exactly what paperwork you need, and there are very few flights available. And no, they are not giving out tourist visas.) I personally know a married couple, and the husband stayed in Shanghai while the wife went back to her home country, and then she couldn't get back into China for about 8 months. Finally she did get back, and they are together again. I also know someone who decided to leave in February 2020 and planned to just stay in another Asian country for "a few months until all of this is done" and then got stuck outside of China and eventually gave up on getting back.

My son has had fevers many times, and the pandemic policy says we aren't allowed to go to any hospital we wanted; we could only go to those that had been designated as fever clinics. When you get there, every patient who has a fever is required to get covid-tested. I submitted the receipts to my health insurance company (an international company based outside of China), and they said they will only reimburse the covid test if we have a doctor's referral for it. I emailed them back to say, at this hospital (and probably for all of China?) the policy is that everyone who has a fever must be covid-tested. (And then they reimbursed it.) Some family members in the US asked me about the result from my son's covid test, and I said "well I haven't gotten on the app to check it yet, but since there haven't been any government workers banging on our door, it must be negative." (Yep, negative every time. And we knew it would be- we don't know anybody at all in China who has had covid.)

Recently for our project at work, we had to send some people on a business trip. Shanghai had just reported something like 3 locally-transmitted covid cases, so other cities were very cautious about letting us travel there. (Yes, 3. That's not a typo.) They said that they would not allow anyone who lives in Pudong- a huge district in Shanghai, population is around 5 million. Now, as far as the city of Shanghai is concerned, the apartment complexes where these 3 covid-infected people live were classified as "medium-risk" areas, and as long as you haven't gone there, you can go wherever you want. That's what the city of Shanghai says, but other cities have their own rules, and view the entire district of Pudong as a problem. So we picked 2 people from our project team who don't live in Pudong (even though other people on the project live in Pudong, and we are all at the office together unmasked every day...) and sent them on the trip. They were required to get covid-tested 3 times: once before getting on the plane in Shanghai, once when they landed in another city, and again when they drove from there to a third city- because each city doesn't accept the others' test results. (And of course the results came back negative every time.)

I remember one time when we heard that there was 1 locally-transmitted covid case in Shanghai, and someone at work was telling me "it's not safe to take the subway" because of that. And I was like, "but... you're vaccinated..." A lot of people are way way cautious whenever they hear news about 1 single covid case in a city.

I saw a post shared on WeChat- a friend of a friend said that the quarantine staff came in the middle of the night and woke up everyone in their apartment building and covid-tested them all, because 1 person in the building is a close contact of a confirmed case. (A close contact, not even a confirmed positive case.) They were all sent back to their homes to wait for the test results. The quarantine staff said if all the results come back negative, they will be allowed to leave their homes, and if any are positive, they will all have to stay there (yes, even the negative ones), and the quarantine staff will bring them lunch.

At work, HR sent out an email that said "we have heard about situations where an entire office building gets quarantined- so just in case, we recommend bringing some supplies like warm clothes, so you have them if we are all stuck here."

Yeah, there have been a handful of times that Shanghai had a locally-transmitted covid case. Each time, I first heard of it through unreliable rumors going around in WeChat groups, and then by the end of the day, the city of Shanghai makes an official announcement about it. And the next day, you always see the city of Shanghai publishing an article on their WeChat along the lines of "30,000 people have been tested in relation to the covid case reported yesterday, so far all results have come back negative." (Or occasionally there might be 1 positive. And yes, I believe those numbers. Yes, I believe China's numbers. I'm here; I don't know anyone with covid; we live our lives normally except we have to wear masks. I believe China's numbers.)

And I've heard people in the WeChat groups talking about "my friend lives in Beijing, her husband was traveling and had a transfer in Shanghai, and now Beijing won't allow him to enter for the next 2 weeks, because he was in Shanghai for just a few hours." It seems like the city of Beijing in particular is extremely strict because they want everything to be perfect for the Olympics.

So I know people who have experienced all of these things. All the restrictions and rules we have in China now because of the pandemic. This is our experience with covid. But no one actually *has* covid. Statistically: there have been something like 100,000 or 130,000 covid cases in China- cumulative. And something like 4000 to 5000 deaths. (According to this site and this site.) China has a population of 1.4 billion. So this means about 1 in 10,000 people in China have had covid. That's 0.01%. That's one-hundredth of one percent. (And actually, something like 75,000 of those were just in the initial outbreak in Hubei province in early 2020. Outside of Hubei province, the rate is way way less than 1 in 10,000.)

Compare this to the US: 50 million cases, in a population of 330 million. That's 15%. That's 1500 times the rate we have in China.

It must be unbelievable, to just look at the statistics. People must be thinking, "China is claiming they only have 100,000 covid cases CUMULATIVE? There have been times when the US reported 100,000 new cases just in ONE SINGLE DAY! And only 4000 deaths? This is ridiculous, obviously this data is fake, they're not fooling anyone." But it's real, I'm telling you that it's real, and I'm telling you how it's possible- it's because of all these rules, which are extremely restrictive for travelers and anyone who happens to live kinda-sorta near anyone who tested positive for covid.

These rules which have saved millions of lives in China.

There really is a place in this world where we can just go about our lives mostly like normal. Have to wear a mask in public, and traveling is hugely complicated and sometimes impossible, but other than that, my life has been "back to normal" for a long time now. I worked from home for maybe 2 weeks in February 2020, then I was back in the office. I still worried about covid until May 2020, but since then, no, I haven't. I'm not worried I'm going to get covid. I'm not worried when my son has a fever- I know it's not covid, because nobody here gets covid (okay maybe occasionally like 2 people in a city of 26 million, and then there are lockdowns and testing and everyone is talking about it).

I mean, it's not all good news- for me, all these covid rules are just kind of an inconvenience, but I have read articles about cities near the border that have had to have lockdowns over and over and over because they keep having covid cases, because China isn't able to control everyone who's crossing the land borders. For those cities, it's been devastating to their economy. 

China has done a good job handling the pandemic, and I'm fortunate to be here and be able to live a normal life- well except that we have to wear masks in public, and traveling to other cities requires jumping through a lot of hoops and running the risk that you'll get stuck in a quarantine for 14 days. Yes, other than those rules, I am fine. I don't need to fear covid, because essentially nobody has it. Even 1 case in a city of millions is big news. So no, I don't know anyone in China who has had covid. I know lots of people who have been inconvenienced by all these pandemic rules. But nobody has covid.

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Related:

Well *now* I'm glad I stayed in China

"I'm Thankful That We Live In A Country..."

Blogaround

1. ‘Bless Every Home:’ Personal Evangelism Done Super-Creepy (posted December 5) HOLY CRAP this is CREEPY. But really it does follow logically from the belief that Christians know the right answers for everyone else's lives.

2. I just found out that a bunch of blogs from the Patheos Nonreligious channel are moving to a new site- here is Friendly Atheist's post about it.

3. Christian "Financial Guru" Dave Ramsey Sued For Religious Discrimination (posted December 14) "In contrast, Plaintiff's religious beliefs required him to heed the advice of science to protect his family from a deadly disease."

4. bell hooks, Pathbreaking Black Feminist, Dies at 69 (posted December 15) 

5. Microsoft’s Bing told by China to suspend auto-suggest search feature for 30 days (posted December 17) Uh, what this article doesn't mention is that on Friday (December 17), for a lot of people in China (including me) the Bing website just would not load at all. Checking it again on December 18, it does load and works normally. So that's good.

I guess the Powers That Be weren't trying to block the entire Bing site in China (though I was 0% surprised when I thought that was what was going on- in China it's normal for something on the internet to suddenly be gone if the government decides it's a problem). I guess they were just disabling 1 feature of it, but somehow blocked the entire thing, but then it was fixed a day later.

I really need Bing! Google is blocked here, and Baidu's search engine is not that good (in my opinion).

6. China riveted by public row between pop star and former wife (posted December 20) I was a fan of Wang Leehom- at our wedding, our first dance was one of his songs. Sad to find out he didn't treat his wife and kids right.

7. Christopher Yuan, Stop Lying about the Participants in the Documentary Pray Away (posted July 16) "Christopher Yuan claims he knew me before my 'deconversion.' This is a complete falsehood. I left the ex-gay movement in 1979. I don't know him and have never met him."

8. Dragons, Jackals, and Bible Translators (posted October 25) "Yet repeatedly, translators read this as referring to a serpent or, commonly, a dragon, who has no business in those deserts and wastelands."

9. Perfectly preserved baby dinosaur discovered curled up inside its egg (posted December 21) "We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before."

Being Asexual in Pregnancy World

A 3rd-trimester pregnant woman. Image source.

[content note: talking about my sex life]

Since the topic for this month's Carnival of Aces is "Children and Childhood", I want to talk a bit about when I was pregnant, and how my experiences related to sex and pregnancy were totally different than what I read in the pregnancy books. 

So I read some books about pregnancy and about how having a baby changes your relationship with your partner. Good information, but wow these books were so extremely heteronormative and cisnormative. And the parts about sex... as an asexual, I was just baffled, reading what these books had to say about sex.

They talked as if everyone's sex life was fine before getting pregnant. Like everything is easy and makes sense. And pregnancy/ having a newborn is what throws a wrench into it and makes sex suddenly confusing and difficult. They gave some advice about how you will now need to learn to communicate with your partner about sex.

And I'm just like... what? How...? So, I know that in general, people get pregnant after being in a long-term sexual relationship. How are people having a long-term sexual relationship without doing the work of figuring out what they want from sex and how to communicate that to their partner? How on earth is that something that wouldn't have already happened? Like it's a new thing prompted by the pregnancy-related changes. How?

Like how are you able to have sex enough to get pregnant, without having those kinds of "communicating about sex" skills? I don't think I could have. I think if I hadn't done that work, I would have had to just quit having sex, because it was so unworkable at the beginning. 

Here's the way it happened for me: The very first time I had sex, it made no sense. And over the course of several years, I did the hard work of learning about my body and how my body works, and built up habits of communicating clearly to my partner (Hendrix, who is now my husband) about what we want or don't want.

It got better, gradually, because I did the work to make it better. I approached it like a science project and I did the research. I had goals. I had all that.

And now here I am reading this book that's like "ah sex is a lot more difficult now because you have to know your body and communicate with your partner" and I'm like, what? Why would you not already be doing that? Those are the things I had to learn at the very beginning of my sex life. Are people really getting pregnant by having sex that doesn't include having extensive discussions about sex beforehand? It doesn't make sense!

Actually, when I was pregnant, my approach to sex got better. I no longer felt that I had an obligation to have sex with my husband, and so when we had sex, it was because I actually wanted to. Before this, I constantly felt the weight of years of religious teaching about "the wife has a duty to have sex with her husband, otherwise he'll be so unhappy and maybe even cheat- like OF COURSE he shouldn't cheat, OF COURSE that is his responsibility and we are not blaming the wife, but COME ON what did you expect." (They also told me that feminism was about hating men- but actually, it was feminists who told me that men are capable of being better than that, of being decent human beings even if you're not having sex with them.)

So back then, one of my main motivations for having sex was to get rid of the guilt which said "I'm not a good enough wife because I'm not having sex with him enough." But when I was pregnant, I felt like I didn't have to do that any more. I felt so sick all the time, and it was for the purpose of making our baby, and so I felt like no one could claim that I wasn't doing enough. Like, finally I had a "good enough reason" to say no to sex and not feel guilty about it. (To clarify: My husband had never tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to say no to sex; it was all those Christian marriage books I read growing up. I am glad my husband is not a Christian.)

And another interesting thing: So I wanted to know if it was okay to have sex during pregnancy, or does it pose any risk to the baby. I googled it, and basically the answer is that in some cases where you have a high-risk pregnancy, you shouldn't have sex, but in a normal pregnancy you totally can.

So there was my answer- but suddenly I realized, wait... When people ask the question, "Is it okay to have sex while pregnant?" what do they mean by "sex"? Do they mean the vaginal penetration part, or the orgasm part? (When someone with a uterus has an orgasm, the uterus contracts.) Both of those seem like they could maybe be a risk to the baby- but in my mind, when I asked the question, I was only referring to vaginal penetration. In my mind, me having an orgasm is not part of the definition of "sex". Yes I do use a sex toy to get an orgasm at the same time that my husband and I are having sex... I do that every time, actually... but I still seem to be conceptualizing it as a different thing. Like "sex" is "penis-in-vagina until the man has an orgasm", and anything else you do is sort of an add-on. Is that a little messed-up?

(This is a whole nother topic, but: This [not viewing female orgasm as a key part of the definition of sex] is one example of why I don't like when people say "sex can be anything you want! There's no 'should'" and don't give any guidelines for what's normal/reasonable/fair. They say you don't have to follow society's standards or other people's opinions- all that matters is that you and your partner agree on it, and it's all good. Yes, I understand why people give this advice, and how it can be very good and healthy for someone who is confident and knows their body and knows what they want. But for a naive little girl like I was... the idea that the only tool I have is my own consent and my own ability to negotiate for what I want, and I don't have any societal expectations backing me up... you end up consenting to things without realizing that there are better options. That you deserve better and that you can and should demand better.)

Anyway, I googled all these things, and basically if it's a low-risk pregnancy, it's fine to do vaginal penetration, fine to have orgasms, fine to do anal sex, etc, pretty much everything is okay, EXCEPT if it's painful, that's a sign you should stop because maybe it means something is wrong, and that might be a risk to the baby.

Yeah, all that "Christian marriage teaching" about how "men need sex" and "if it's painful, TOO BAD, that's not a good enough excuse"... Now for the first time I was considering the idea that my pain mattered, that it's an important signal to pay attention to, rather than something to just endure through because I have to do my "wifely duty."

Basically, it was really good and healthy for me to have a period of time where I wasn't living under the burden of "I need to have sex even if I don't want to, because men need it." Where I could say no and that would be that. (My husband has never pressured me when I said no, but before I was pregnant, I always felt really guilty whenever I said no. But then when I was pregnant, I could say no without guilt.) Where I began to contemplate the idea that painful sex was just unacceptable- I had the right to just completely not accept it. Wow.

And then after my baby was born, there was nothing difficult about sex at all any more. I gave birth vaginally, and now I no longer have any trouble with vaginal penetration. The difference is so big, in fact, that I have concluded that I actually really had vaginismus before, and giving birth vaginally cured it. Now our sex life is so much better.

So I read these books, about pregnancy and babies and how that affects your sex life, and my experience is totally the opposite. Apparently for most people, sex gets more difficult? Like, yes, a big factor in that is that you have a baby who is always there and always needs something, so there's no time for sex, which is also a problem for us. But overall, it's so much easier now. I did the hard work way way back then- learning about my body and learning how to communicate- which apparently some people run into only after they've had a baby??? And then when I was pregnant I no longer had the societal pressure of being "required" to have sex with my husband, and then when I gave birth it cured my vaginismus... so yeah, wow. Much better now.

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Related:

Conservative Christians Teach That Wives Are REQUIRED To Have Sex Even When They Don't Want To. Here Are The Receipts.

He Just Loves Me (a post about Sex, Pregnancy, and My "Wifely Duty")

How Pregnancy and Childbirth Changed My Asexuality (or, actually, A Post About Vaginismus)

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This post is part of the December 2021 Carnival of Aces. The topic for this month is "Children and Childhood."

Blogaround

1. Tom Holland Is In the Center of the Web (posted November 17) These pictures caused me to stumble.

2. Sex Ed For Self-Advocates. This is a sex-ed resource for autistic people. And WOW it's extremely good.

3. A Piece of Ace History that Deserves to Not Be Forgotten (posted 2020) "For the unaware: Shortland Street is a long-running soap opera from New Zealand (although it does air in the evenings) about Shortland Street hospital and its surrounding community in the fictional town of Ferndale, which from 2007-2010 (and a special anniversary storyline in 2012) had the first out asexual character on TV."

4. Shang-Chi: What’s Katy Doing in This Movie? (posted November 20) "First, yes, I do think it was fantastic representation to feature a cross-gender friendship in a prominent role and not turn it into a romance that would have detracted from the plot."

5. May the circles be unbroken (posted November 28) "The administration is expected to unveil a new plan that would allow any group of at least five private citizens to come together as a 'sponsor circle' and help Afghan refugees resettle in US cities across the country, as reported by CBS News and CNN."

Blogaround

1. Dollar Tree bumps up prices to $1.25 for most items (posted November 24)

2. Living together in two separate worlds (posted November 12) "A 'progressive Christian' is someone that evangelicals believe is outloving God. 'Progressive Christianity' holds that it’s impossible to do that."

3. Writers Like James Baldwin Led Me to a Black Jesus (posted November) "If the white people I worshiped with and went to school with and had dinner with had the imagination to see C.S. Lewis’s Aslan the lion in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” as Jesus, then I knew there should have been no problem when Black people said Jesus was Black and Jesus loved Black people and Jesus wanted to see Black people free. But I found out that many could see the symbol of divine goodness and love in an animal before they could ever see the symbol of divine goodness and love in Blackness."

4. How to Live for Free in Beijing: An Artist’s Guide (posted December 1) "Zou coined a term to describe this phenomenon: 'excessive goods.' An 'excessive good' could be anything that is given to the wealthy for free, but is inaccessible to the non-wealthy. A complimentary snack at a swanky bar. A free gift at a luxury store. A bottle of wine at an invitation-only dinner."