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| Part of a rapid antigen self-test kit for covid. 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)
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)
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Lockdown continues here in Shanghai!
Okay, first the overview and timeline:
March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.
March 23-now: Second lockdown. 12 days and counting.
Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 8 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30)
Antigen self-tests: 2 times (April 2 and 3)
The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.
Also, we are in Pudong (the east half of Shanghai). This is important information because Pudong and Puxi (the west half) and being locked down separately.
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Pudong is NOT open
As you may remember from my March 28 post: It was announced on March 27 that Pudong (the east half of Shanghai) would be entirely locked down from March 28 to early morning April 1, and Puxi (the west half of Shanghai) would be locked down from April 1 to 5.
A few days later, a covid case was discovered in our complex, which meant our complex would have 14 more days of lockdown anyway- I knew we weren't getting out on April 1, regardless of what happened in the rest of Pudong.
Anyway, on March 31, the city of Shanghai published new guidelines for Pudong. It said that there would be 3 categories of complexes, and different rules for each one:
- Locked down area: This means a complex that has positive covid cases. The building with the positive case will be locked down for 14 days (starting from March 28)- you can't leave the building at all. And the other buildings in the complex will be 7+7: this means 7 days you can't leave your building, and then 7 days you can at least walk around outside but can't leave the complex.
- Controlled area: This means a complex that did not have any positive covid cases, but it's in the same neighborhood (not sure how to translate this word?) as a complex that has a positive case. In this category, you can't leave your complex for 7 days.
- Precautionary area: This means there were no covid cases in the complex or in the whole neighborhood. Congrats, you are free! (But with all the normal advice about "Wear a mask! Don't go anywhere crowded!")
Here's the weird thing, though: Is ANYBODY in category 3? Seems like... no? I have seen this discussed in a lot of WeChat groups the past few days, and I haven't heard of anyone who is like "yeah we are in Pudong, and on April 1 our lockdown ended."
I heard a joke about it in Chinese, let me tell it to you in English:
Pudong is unlocked, except for 12 streets and 24 towns.
How many streets and towns are there in Pudong?
12 streets and 24 towns.
So... okay then.
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Antigen self-test kits
I mentioned the antigen self-test kits last week (on March 26, Shanghai distributed 14 million of them and had people test themselves this way, but we were not in those 14 million).
Well, exciting (?) update: On April 2, our apartment complex got the self-test kits, and we all had to test ourselves for covid at home. And again on April 3. The building volunteers asked everyone to post a photo in the group chat, to show the negative result. (Yes, our entire building tested negative both days.)
Yeah people could totally lie about this (ie, they test positive but claim it was negative) but you will definitely get arrested for that.
The self-test kits are basically the same as what other countries have been using for a long time, but were only recently approved by the Chinese government for use here. It's a nose swab, then you swish it around in a test tube for 1 minute, then drip several drops onto the testing strip, and see if you get 1 line or 2 (1 line means negative, 2 lines means positive).
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Groceries
So last time I said getting groceries is a huge problem because most of the grocery apps we normally use are just impossible to place orders on. (Apparently some people have had success with setting their alarm for 5:50 am and placing the order exactly at 6:00, okay, sure, so not 100% impossible, but pretty much.)
So instead, neighbors have been getting together to buy things in bulk. There are grocery stores that can't deliver individual orders, but if you get a huge group of people from the same complex all ordering things together, then you can get them. And now a few apps have sprung up for this purpose.
Unfortunately there is not much of a selection- it's things that Chinese people see as the most essential foods, and that's it. Meat, rice, vegetables, oil, milk, fresh fruit, noodles... So, we are going to run out of Cheerios. And bread. And diapers. I can't find a group buy for those things... We ran out of pasta about a week ago...
But the good news is, a bunch of the group buy things have been delivered! Now we have plenty of food, even though we're missing some key things like pasta.
Also, Hendrix's employer had a grocery box available for only 20 kuai (about 4 dollars), so we ordered that, they shipped it to us, it arrived successfully, and it's a bunch of vegetables and A WHOLE CHICKEN like with the head and everything. My employer is also sending grocery boxes, for free, but mine hasn't arrived yet. A lot of companies have been doing this- finding a grocery shipping service to send food to their employees in lockdown.
Also, remember last time, we got some free groceries from the government, but I said it wasn't that great because it was just vegetables? Well, today we got free noodles and cans of Spam from the government, so ... yay? Yes, we will eat them. That's good.
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Children who test positive for covid
[UPDATE: Good news, the policy about separating children from parents has been changed- see my April 6 post]
Yesterday (April 2) there were some posts going around on social media, showing babies (probably all under 2 years old) who had tested positive for covid and were in a hospital, 3 or 4 babies all in one hospital crib... The post said there were 200 children and only 10 nurses to take care of them, and many of them have red butts because their diapers are not being changed.
Like, we don't really know how true it is, because you don't really know the source of the things you read on social media, but I know it is true that China's policy is to separate children from their parents when children test positive for covid.
Later that day, the government put out a statement that those photos just show the children being moved from one area of the hospital to another- it's not like they're all packed into hospital beds like that all the time.
Uh...
Like, I am VERY SKEPTICAL.
The government is like, everything is fine, nothing to see here!
Yes, I am sure that there are things going on in the hospitals with positive covid patients that they don't want us to see, and they will censor if it gets onto the internet. We all know that in China, things get censored on the internet- sometimes you read a post, and then you come back to find it again later, and it's mysteriously gone. I suspect- this is just my opinion though- that these photos of the babies yesterday got shared widely enough that they couldn't just censor it, they had to issue a statement about how it's not what it looks like or whatever.
Misinformation about covid spreads very fast on social media, and the government has again and again told people not to believe rumors- on March 23, Shanghai announced that they were investigating two people who had started a rumor that the whole city would be shut down. (That's kind of, umm, interesting now that the entire city is shut down, except for some hypothetical places in Pudong that are classified as "precautionary areas" and may or may not actually exist.)
So yeah, the Chinese government censors things, claiming that it's just trying to stop the spread of rumors and misinformation. To some extent that could be a reasonable thing to do, but there are definitely lots of times that stuff gets censored just because it makes them look bad- and people should know the truth. I'm glad we have social media now, because then we can find out about news that definitely would be censored from any official news source. At the same time, though, you shouldn't believe everything you read on social media...
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And now some opinions:
It seems like the quarantine facilities they've set up for covid-positive patients in Shanghai have been overwhelmed and don't have enough resources for everyone who has tested positive. (It's something like 5000 new cases per day.) There is talk (from official government sources) of letting asymptomatic people quarantine at home- but it's just a suggestion so far, we don't know if that will become the actual policy. I guess that would be better- as long as we can be certain they won't accidently infect their neighbors.
It's... it's not good, a lot of the stuff that is happening. The problems with getting groceries, the conditions in the quarantine centers, the policy of separating children from their parents. But I still want to say, overall the "lockdown and mass testing" zero-covid strategy is right. The alternative is thousands of people dying of covid.
Because of covid, here's how the world works now: You can either live in a society where the government has the power to force you into a lockdown at any time, or you can live in a society where thousands of people die of covid and it overwhelms the medical system. I don't think there are any other types of societies in the world... Well, I'm mostly thinking about China and the US- perhaps there are other countries that have done a good job handling the pandemic while also preserving all the human rights that we should have...?
But, I want to say this: In the areas where the Shanghai government is not doing a good job, we absolutely should bring those problems to light. I think I've mentioned before on my blog, I have this feeling like I shouldn't criticize anything at all about China's handling of the pandemic, because the alternative is to do what the US did, and we obviously don't want that. No, that's not true. The Shanghai government doesn't allow grocery stores to open- yes, let's criticize that. They should have done better. The policy about separating children from their parents- I know it's because of limited resources, but let's be honest about the problems that it causes, and the trauma that it does to the children.
And actually, there is a complaint hotline you can call if your local apartment management people are trying to put more restrictions on you than what the city government said. I think it's easy for people in other countries to assume "well you're in China, you don't have any rights" but actually the city government sets the policies, and if the lower-level local governments are not acting according to those policies, there are ways you can report them and get them in trouble. Things like putting a physical lock on your apartment door, or not letting people get medical treatment during lockdown- these are illegal and I hope the city government would intervene if that was happening. I don't have any actual experience with the complaint hotline, though, so can't really tell you how effective it is.
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Tomorrow (April 4), they will be doing nucleic-acid testing on the entire population of Shanghai. Apparently we have to get up early for that. Anyway, I will post more updates in a few days.
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Follow-up post: Lockdown Diaries: Dressing Up, Free Medicine, Free Rice
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