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)
I'm in Lockdown Again (March 25)
Now All of Pudong (East Shanghai) is in Lockdown (March 28)
Lockdown Diaries: Covid Case in Our Complex, and Free Veggies from the Government (March 31)
Lockdown Diaries: Antigen Self-Tests, and Children with Covid (April 3)
Lockdown Diaries: Dressing Up, Free Medicine, Free Rice (April 6)
Lockdown Diaries: I am Okay, Shanghai is Not (April 9)
Lockdown Diaries: Part of Shanghai is Out of Lockdown (April 12)
Lockdown Diaries: Dystopian Madness (April 15)
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Here's the updated timeline:
March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.
March 23-now: Second lockdown. 27 days and counting.
Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 13 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17)
Antigen self-tests: 10 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16)
(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)
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British woman's blog about going to a quarantine center
The day I caught covid in China! I've posted a link to this blog before, but the writer has posted a lot of updates since then, so go read it. She is now out of the "covid camp" and back at her home in Shanghai, so that's good news.
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Free groceries
Well the past few days, we have received the following things for free from the government: yogurt, eggs, soy sauce, salt. I feel like whoever is in charge of giving us free stuff has really stepped up their game; I am happy with this free stuff.
People are always posting pictures of their free groceries on WeChat, to compare with friends. Because this is organized by the local governments in each little area of Shanghai, so there is a LOT of variation in what kind of stuff you get and how good it is.
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Covid cases in our complex
Yeah every few days we have a new covid case in our apartment complex, which resets our lockdown- another 14 days!
Good news is, some people who tested positive and were taken to the quarantine centers have now recovered and come back! Seems like typically people are there for 1-2 weeks and then they go back home.
It is illegal to discriminate against people who have had covid- for example, the apartment management can't say "you're not allowed to come back" after the person has already tested negative and gotten out of the quarantine center. But we have heard stories of this happening anyway. Hopefully the people who want to discriminate will stop when you threaten them with legal trouble.
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3 covid deaths reported in Shanghai
CNN article: Shanghai reports first official Covid deaths in weeks-long lockdown
On April 18, Shanghai reported that 3 people died of covid. (All were elderly and unvaccinated.)
Does that seem a bit low? Is the actual death toll higher? I don't know. At some point in the last week, the government lost my trust, so I don't feel like taking an "I believe China's numbers" stand right now. *shrug*
But more people have died from this lockdown than from covid itself. I have heard a lot of anecdotes on WeChat about people who couldn't get medical treatment, or who committed suicide in lockdown. It's social media, so you don't know what's true and what's not, but yeah it must be the true that more than 3 people have died from the lockdown itself.
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People are worried about getting infected from delivery drivers
There was a rumor going around on WeChat a few days ago- a policeman was going around covid-testing the delivery drivers, and within 1 hour he found 20 of them that tested positive. Now, I don't really believe that- it's social media, people can post anything they want- there was no evidence posted along with it. But people are saying it's possible to get infected from food deliveries. I don't know how much it happens in reality, but people are very worried about it.
There are rumors that a lot of delivery drivers have covid and are getting other people to go take the covid test for them, so they will have a negative result. Because delivery drivers are making tons of money right now, and obviously if they test positive, they won't be allowed to continue with their delivery job.
I really have no idea how true it is. Clearly delivery drivers are at greater risk than those of us who are just sitting at home. So sure, some of them are probably getting covid- but I don't know if there's tons of them going rogue and continuing to do their jobs even though they have covid.
Because of this, some apartment complexes are telling residents they are not allowed to receive any deliveries at all. Which is ridiculous. Fortunately our complex isn't like that. We have lots of food deliveries.
Anyway, the security guards at our complex spray all the packages with disinfectant. And I have also been wiping stuff off with alcohol wipes when we bring it into our home.
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Grocery store video on Chinese news
A few days ago, there was a video shared around a lot on WeChat- it showed a news broadcast from CCTV (the official news station in China) about how Shanghai is working hard to fight the pandemic and ensure that everyone is able to get food. The part that made people mad was it shows video footage of people shopping at a grocery store. Just like, very normal, pushing carts around, picking out vegetables (as well as employees in blue PPE stocking the vegetable areas). People were mad because, wtf, we are all in lockdown- we're not going to grocery stores! What is this video??? It's being shown like that's normal life in Shanghai right now.
Fortunately, propaganda machine SHINE published an article to explain to us that, don't worry, this video was not staged, it's real footage of people in an area of Shanghai (Jinshan) where the lockdown has been partly lifted.
Um, okay.
Yes, I believe it's a real video from an area of Shanghai where the lockdown has been partly lifted. But THE PROBLEM is it's portrayed in the news coverage as if that's representative of all of Shanghai. The reality is, no, we can't go to grocery stores. And many many people are having trouble getting food at all.
(This is kind of like how I feel when I read articles from western news sites about some bad thing that happened in China, and they make it sound like that's happening EVERYWHERE and that's just normal life in China.)
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Taking over schools and apartments
So last time I mentioned that people in our apartment complex were protesting because a nearby school is going to be used as a quarantine center for covid-positive people. Well, a few night ago, the whole night we could hear sounds from the school, like construction sounds/ moving equipment around sounds. It kind of scares me...
And the official statement is that after this covid outbreak is done, the government will totally disinfect everything and the school will be all nice again and the students will have a nice school, or whatever, but honestly I don't think they're going to do a good job. I think they're going to do the bare minimum. I think they're going to spray everything with disinfectant, leave a mess everywhere, and call it a day.
Because what we've seen at the quarantine centers is they're doing the bare minimum. They're not even meeting people's basic needs- we've heard that some of these places are dirty, cold, no privacy, the bathrooms are a horror show, in some cases they haven't even provided people with food, water, or medicine... So yeah I have 0 faith that they are going to care about things like "you messed up all our stuff that was at the school."
Also last time I mentioned that there was an apartment complex in Zhangjiang (an area of Shanghai) where people were forced to move out of their homes so they could be used to quarantine covid patients. Well, something similar happened in Beicai [北蔡] (in Shanghai, near the IKEA in Pudong). A few days ago, everyone in a certain apartment complex was told to pack up, don't bring your pets, and leave your doors unlocked so that their homes could all be disinfected, because that area had a lot of covid cases and something something environmental contamination. There were videos shared widely on WeChat that show people being taken away by a row of buses during the night.
This is, just, WTF. Also I would trust the pandemic workers 0% with pets. I hope they are not killing people's pets, but they probably are.
(UPDATE: Good news, they did not kill the pets. For more information about that, see my May 7 post.)
Anyway, a photo of the document that was given to residents to tell them about the procedure for leaving was shared on WeChat (we can't be sure it's genuine, because like I said this is social media so we don't really know- but I think it's real). It said their homes would be disinfected and then they will be allowed to move back in- they don't need to take all their stuff out, they're not moving out, they are just leaving temporarily. (So this is NOT a case of moving people out so they could use those buildings for quarantine sites.) That's what it said, but like I said I'm all out of trust- who knows, they might be lying and actually they're not going to let these people return to their homes.
Yeah so here's one of the photos that was circulating on WeChat:
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And people who are just fed up with it
So I have heard of a few situations where people refused to participate in the mass testing. Someone on WeChat said there were positive cases in their apartment building, and those people hadn't been taken to the quarantine centers yet, but everyone in the building was asked to come out together to get tested, and they all refused. Because they feel it's not safe to all stand in a group during the testing.
Also, I saw a video where a Chinese woman talks about what happened with her family: several of her family members tested positive, and were picked up to get taken to the quarantine centers, but after 5 hours they were brought back home. (I assume this is because there wasn't space available at the quarantine center.) They stayed at home for the next few days and recovered from covid on their own. Then they got a call that said now they are required to go to the quarantine center. (The video that was shared on WeChat includes the audio from this call.) The woman is saying to the person on the phone, [okay I am paraphrasing] "No, we are not going. You should have taken us there last week- now we are testing negative, and we are not going. This makes no sense- do you actually care about people's health, or do you just want us to go because it will look good? Shanghai should be ashamed of this. It makes no sense. No, we are not going."
And the person on the phone is telling her, "if you don't go, your health code will be red forever." (I've talked about the health code before- there's an app that can determine if you are low, medium, or high risk for having covid, and you're only allowed to enter public places if you are low risk, ie, green.) Honestly... I feel like this is an empty threat, and also, right now no one is allowed to go anywhere anyway, so who cares.
And a similar thing shared on WeChat today- it was an audio recording of a phone call between a German man and a translator who was tasked with telling him he would have to go to the quarantine center. The man says, [I am paraphrasing] "No, I am not going. I tested positive 2 weeks ago, and I was picked up to go to the quarantine center, I had to pay 6000 rmb [about 900 USD] to put my cat in a kennel, and then they made us wait outside in the cold for hours and brought us back home anyway. And now, now that I'm testing negative, 12 days later, now you are saying I have to go. No, I am not going. Tell your boss that this policy is f***ing stupid, and this is a disgrace for Shanghai, and for China. Send the CDC here to do a covid test. If they test me and I'm positive, then fine, no problem, I will go to the camp. But I won't be positive, because it has been 12 days. I am not going. If no one comes here to test me, well that is not my f***ing problem. I am not going."
The thing that really gets me, that makes me lose my trust, is all the situations where covid-positive people have been told something about what the procedure is, and it turns out not to be true. Like on the blog I linked to above, written by a British woman- she was told she would be picked up on March 30, so she threw away the extra food from her home, and then they didn't come to get her until March 31. She was told she would be going to a hotel, but it turned out to be some crappy place with no shower, that was freezing cold at night. They were all told that they would be allowed to leave after 2 negative tests, but she met people at the camp who had already had 2 negative tests (or even 3) and still had no idea when they would be taken home. And when she finally was let out and got on the bus to go home, the bus just sat there for 7 hours before finally leaving.
Similar thing with Leona Cheng's story (I posted this link last time): She was told to get ready because someone would come pick her up "immediately", but actually they came 1-2 days later.
And the Chinese family and the German man that I saw on WeChat refusing to go to quarantine because they were no longer covid-positive- in both cases, they had been picked up before to go to quarantine, but then brought back home. And I have heard other anecdotes on WeChat about that happening. That's so ridiculous- like, the very thing you don't want is covid-positive people going places unnecessarily.
It just shows that things are extremely disorganized, and that they don't care how much inconvenience or stress they are causing people. And because of that, I can't trust a lot of things the government says or does anymore.
And this policy of making people go to the quarantine centers even after they've recovered from covid, meanwhile there isn't even enough room in the quarantine centers and they're taking over schools and people are mad about that- this just makes no sense. Surely they will soon realize that this makes no sense, and they will change the policy so that if you've already recovered from covid, you don't have to go to the quarantine center at all. (Maybe I'm still too naive and optimistic.)
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All right that's today's update. I'll post again in a few days.
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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: More of the Same
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