I'm in Lockdown Again

In Shanghai, pandemic workers in white hazmat suits receive a food delivery. Image source.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

On the Current Covid Outbreak in Shanghai (March 12)
I'm in Lockdown (March 16)
I'm Still in Lockdown (March 19)

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Okay, so.

I mean, it's really not that exciting. Lockdown is just, the same tediousness of being stuck at home and trying to get work done on my computer while my son fusses because he wanted to watch a *different* dinosaur video than the one he is watching. And cooking our own food, and worrying about if we can get groceries delivered or not.

But anyway, this is a big news story, the covid outbreak in Shanghai, so I have a duty to tell you readers all about it.

Okay basic timeline of our apartment complex's lockdowns:

(Definition of "lockdown": we're not allowed to leave our apartment complex. We can walk around outside, but the gates of the complex are blocked. We can still get things delivered- there is a shelf at the main gate where deliveries get dropped off, then we have to walk over there and get them. There are some specific exceptions, reasons that you can get out of lockdown, like if you're an essential worker or you need medical treatment, that sort of thing.)

Wednesday, March 16: Our first lockdown starts. We are told it will be 48 hours. Everyone in the apartment complex is required to get covid-tested.

Thursday, March 17: We all (entire apartment complex) get covid-tested a second time.

Friday, March 18: We thought the lockdown was going to end, but it didn't, because the apartment management hadn't gotten the official notice from the government that they were allowed to open the doors. Instead, on Friday night there's an official notice that we are doing another 48-hour lockdown and we have to get covid-tested two more times.

Saturday, March 19: We all get covid-tested.

Sunday, March 20: We all get covid-tested.

Monday, March 21: Finally, in the evening, they announce that our lockdown has ended. HOORAY everyone is excited. (The lockdown lasted 6 days.)

Tuesday, March 22: Yay no lockdown! We ordered food from a restaurant and it was delivered right to our door instead of the apartment complex gate. We (me, my husband, and son) didn't go out anywhere that day, but hey, we COULD HAVE.

Wednesday, March 23: In the morning, we are notified that we are in lockdown again. No idea how long this one will be. We all get covid-tested. (Fun math fact: Our whole apartment complex has been covid-tested 5 times. As far as I know, the results are all negative.)

Thursday, March 24: Still in lockdown. 

Friday, March 25 (today): Yep still in lockdown. (This second lockdown has lasted 3 days so far, don't know when it will end.)

So overall: 6 days of lockdown, then 1 day of being allowed out, then 3 days of lockdown. 5 covid tests.

This is the situation in the apartment complex where I live. The rest of Shanghai has similar scenarios, though the exact numbers (how many days of lockdown, how many rounds of mass testing) will be different.

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Groceries:

Lol, remember last week when I was complaining because my grocery delivery was supposed to come at 11:45 but instead it came at 2:45? Man, I WISH I could order stuff on an app and have it come 3 hours later than expected. Now I can barely get anything to come.

There are a bunch of different apps I use that can deliver groceries, and it's like this: Oh, can't order from this store because it's closed. Oh, this one says it can't ship anything to our address. Oh, for this one, I put a bunch of things in my cart, and then at check-out I'm supposed to select the delivery time, but there are no options available for that, so I can't actually place an order. Oh, for this other one, I placed an order successfully, but then the store called me and said they actually can't, so they cancelled it.

I have been checking various apps several times a day to see if there are any options for groceries, and on a few rare occasions, I've actually gotten an order delivered successfully, so yay, I guess.

Like, this is hard for me, and I'm the kind of person who's really organized, always using different apps to compare the prices, I have backup plans for my backup plans. I can read Chinese and have no problem at all using Chinese apps, and my husband is good at cooking with the normal ingredients you find in an average Chinese grocery store, don't need any special imported things. I say it's "hard for me"- I don't mean like we're worried about starving, I mean like, we might have to heat up frozen dumplings, we can't get the kind of milk we like so we have to switch to the kind that's in boxes and doesn't require refrigeration (and we almost ran out of that too), and we might run out of animal crackers, which are a staple food in our house.

Like, we're not going to starve, but we are going through our freezer like "oh what's this? I didn't know this meat was in here. Could we have this for dinner?"

(Good news, yesterday I did successfully get a big grocery order delivered, so at least for now I am not concerned about it.)

But anyway, yeah, this grocery situation has got to be unbearable for people who are less organized, or can't cook that many things, or don't normally buy things on their phones, or can't read Chinese...

Also, our apartment complex now has a WeChat group for ordering fresh vegetables/meat/rice- the very basic staples for Chinese cooking, that's it. This group... it's not that organized. People post messages about what food they want to buy, and the vendor doesn't reply to any of them. Then the food came in a big van that stopped at the gate of our apartment complex, and I went out to get ours, and they didn't have it. I had to stand around for a long time before the vegetable guy finally checked and he said you had to place your order before noon on the previous day, so that's why they don't have it. Which is ridiculous, because A LOT of people posted in the group to place orders after we did (and apparently they didn't get their food either) but the group mod never replied to say clearly when the deadline was. Just basically doing a bad job of managing a group with over a hundred people.

We have had better luck with the leader for our specific building- she sometimes posts in our building's WeChat group to say she can get vegetables for us, or she can get a pallet of 30 eggs, and she is reliable about answering messages and actually bringing the food.

I have seen jokes on social media about how green vegetables are a luxury item now, lol.

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Health code:

So this morning (March 25) the city of Shanghai posted on their WeChat to say that anyone who hasn't been covid-tested since March 16 needs to get covid-tested, and if they don't, their health code will turn yellow tonight at 6 pm.

Let me explain the health codes. I have mentioned it on my blog before but I haven't done a whole explainer so here we go:

Actually there are 2 different ones:

Health code (called 随身码 or 健康码):

This one requires you to log in with your name and ID number. I am not sure what data it uses exactly, but it seems like it can be more like, customized to you personally (ie, the powers-that-be can use it to flag you), unlike the "travel code" which is simply your 14-day travel history. As I said, the city of Shanghai announced that anyone who hadn't been covid-tested since March 16 will have their health code turn yellow- so it has access to the data about when you personally have been covid-tested.

The health code is a green QR code, which is apparently able to be scanned so that places can keep a log of everyone who was there. Seems that nobody actually does this though- mine has never been scanned. The security guard just looks at it and waves you through. (Who knows, maybe since we're in an outbreak now, they've started actually scanning them. I have no idea because I haven't gone anywhere since March 9.)

If you're low-risk, it's green. If you're medium- or high-risk, it's yellow or red, respectively. That's never happened to me; I've always been green.

Example health code. Image source.

Travel code (行程码):

The "travel code" uses your phone's SIM card (I think- I think it's the SIM card and not GPS) to check where you have travelled in the past 14 days. If you haven't been in any medium-risk or high-risk places, then it will show a green arrow. (This one is a simple arrow, not a QR code.)

I guess it could also be yellow or red to indicate medium- or high-risk places, but that's never happened to me.

Also, under the arrow, it has a list of the cities you've travelled to in the past 14 days. Sometimes, even though your arrow is green, you have a city in your list with an asterisk. Like this: 上海市*. That means that city has had medium- or high-risk areas within the past 14 days, but you personally did not go to those specific areas, so you're fine.

(Well, actually. Some cities have rules about not allowing people to enter if they come from a city with an asterisk. So that can be an issue if you're trying to travel.)

As far as I know, the "travel code" doesn't need your actual real name or any other personal information, just your phone number. And then it looks up your travel history based on that.

Travel code. Image source.

Both of these codes have been in use for about 2 years. Here is basically how I've seen them used:

Restaurants, subway stations, taxis: nobody checks

Malls: There is a security guard who is checking. You can show them either the health code or travel code, no need to show both. They don't really care. Actually you could even show them a screenshot of somebody else's, because they're not looking closely enough to notice. (You are definitely not supposed to do that though.) Children don't need a health code.

Tourist sites, the subway station right next to the airport, and other places where you'll have people from out-of-town: They are more serious about checking. Still only need to show 1 of the codes, and still not required for children.

Hospitals: They check both the health code and the travel code. (But not needed for children.)

Airports: I don't remember if they were checking one code or both, but the key thing about the airport was they were requiring health codes for children too. My kid doesn't have a phone obviously, so we had to fill out a paper with his information, which wasn't that much of an inconvenience. Apparently there's also a way you can add a child health code to your own account.

Anyway. Yeah there's been a lot of mass testing over the past week or so, but it is definitely possible to avoid. We could have been hiding people in here and no one would know. There totally are people with legitimate reasons to not be at home during the lockdowns, and I don't think Shanghai is really trying to track down every single individual person... I think they're just turning the health codes yellow, which will be an issue when those people try to enter a public place. (And probably the security guards will be paying more attention to checking the health codes now because we're actually having an outbreak.)

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Overall: Well I'm tired of being in lockdown. Things are fine for me personally, and Shanghai is doing a good job overall (though there are things that aren't working as efficiently as they should- but that's just what happens in a lockdown), but man I am tired of staying at home. It's been 2 weeks. I would like to send my kid to daycare. And go out places. Go to the office. Go out and see friends.

We really have no idea how long this will last. Probably 1-2 months, I would guess.

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With Fresh Urgency, China Pleads With Seniors to Get Vaccinated (March 25)

Locals Detained for Avoiding Virus Tests, Flouting COVID-19 Rules (March 24)

Shanghai’s Lifeline Amid COVID-19: Delivery Workers and Volunteers (March 23)

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Follow-up post: Now All of Pudong (East Shanghai) is in Lockdown