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)
Lockdown Diaries: 3 Covid Deaths Reported in Shanghai (April 18)
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Here's the updated timeline:
March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.
March 23-now: Second lockdown. 31 days and counting.
Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 16 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21)
Antigen self-tests: 11 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22)
(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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So, on April 20 it was reported that Jinshan and Chongming (2 districts in Shanghai) have achieved "dynamic zero COVID", whatever that means. (Link is to a SHINE article, please roll your eyes while reading because SHINE is propaganda.) I guess it means that all the new cases are from people who have already been quarantined due to being close contacts of existing covid patients. As opposed to, finding new covid cases in random people in society. I *guess* that's what it means- the article doesn't define it though...
Okay, Jinshan and Chongming? Let's look at a map real quick:
Jinshan:
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| Map of Shanghai. Jinshan district is in red. Image source. |
Chongming:
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| Map of Shanghai. Chongming Island is in red. Image source. |
Jinshan, I have never been there. Probably takes 2 hours on the subway to get from downtown to Jinshan. And Chongming, that's literally an island. I have been there 1 time.
So... I see it as a bit ridiculous, how Jinshan and Chongming reaching "zero covid" is held up as a sign that Shanghai is totally on the right track. Yeah... yeah none of us in Shanghai are fooled.
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"Precautionary areas"
So on April 11, it was announced that all apartment complexes would be sorted into 3 categories, based on how recently there had been a covid case there. I talked about this in a previous post. The 3 categories are "lockdown", "managed and controlled", and "precautionary." And, they said, if you are in a "precautionary area", that means your lockdown is over! Yay!
Well, turns out it's not all it's cracked up to be. Some people are in complexes that are defined as "precautionary areas" (and everyone there has tested negative for covid for weeks), and yet, they haven't been let out of lockdown. And there isn't really an explanation about why.
I have seen people in the WeChat groups asking "so... so then what's the use of being a precautionary area, if we can't get out of lockdown? I guess it just means we don't have to get covid-tested every day, so... that's something."
Yes, apparently there are areas that are out of lockdown. But I guess I don't know anyone who lives there. Probably way out in Jinshan.
(Our complex is still very much in the "locked down" category due to recent covid cases.)
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More covid deaths reported in Shanghai
So the past few days there have been a few more covid deaths in Shanghai- I think the total now is around 36. I'm kind of skeptical the number is really that low, but I don't know, I don't know what to think about that. As I said last time, the government of Shanghai has lost my trust.
The majority of the people who have died in Shanghai are elderly and unvaccinated. One of the big problems right now is that in China, the vaccination rate for elderly people is too low (maybe 40 or 50%, somewhere around there).
The reason for this is that in general, China is very cautious about vaccines. Too cautious, in my opinion. During the initial vaccine rollout, they said only healthy people from ages 18 to 75 could be vaccinated. If you have any sort of health problem, it's often the case that doctors or nurses will advise you to not get any vaccines for now, just to be safe or whatever.
Also, they were initially saying that pregnant and breastfeeding people couldn't get the covid vaccine, but then changed the policy and said breastfeeding people could but pregnant people couldn't. Because there hadn't been studies done on pregnant people specifically. Extremely cautious.
I mean, this is completely backwards, in my opinion- it's the elderly and weak people who need the vaccines the most. (Also, I support conveniently "forgetting" to mention that you're pregnant, when you got to your vaccine appointment.) But anyway, I'm just telling you this so that you don't think "oh it's their own fault for not being vaccinated" because they were discouraged from getting vaccinated, all this time, and it didn't seem very necessary when we had 0 covid cases every single day.
Anyway, seriously, this is something that Shanghai (and China as a whole) needs to prioritize- getting elderly people vaccinated. But, weirdly, it's not really happening now. Like, if they're sending medical teams here every day to do covid tests on all of us, couldn't they also send people here to vaccinate those who need it? Whatever, I am not in charge.
(My blog posts from when I got vaccinated: Sinopharm vaccine, 1st dose and Sinopharm Booster.)
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Today's viral video
Today (April 22) there was a video I saw shared a lot on WeChat, called "四月之声" ["The Sounds of April"]. It contains audio from many different videos that were shared on WeChat during the Shanghai lockdown- audio of many different people in different desperate situations caused by the lockdown. People who need help but can't get through to the emergency hotlines. People yelling from their apartment windows, "发物资" ["Give us food"]. People begging for help because they have no food. Someone arguing with a security guard who won't let them back into their own home because of the lockdown. A community worker on the phone with an old man, telling the old man how helpless he feels because so many people are calling and asking for help, and he can't help. And so on.
It's just this audio [with Chinese subtitles, which is nice because some of the audio is in Shanghainese rather than Mandarin], along with drone footage of the city, and simple captions about where each audio sample came from and the number of covid cases reported on each date.
Yeah... wow. This is powerful.
Anyway, of course it got censored. But then I saw the same video posted again, from a different account. And throughout the whole day, more and more and more of the exact same video popping up from different WeChat accounts- as it gets censored, people just keep posting it again and again.
And then tonight I saw a lot of people sharing a QR code, with the caption "【转】四月之声删不了版" ("[Forward] The Sounds of April, version that can't be deleted"). The QR code will take you to this webpage (it won't open in WeChat, but if I scan the QR code with a different app on my phone, it totally goes to that webpage and plays the video). I see that it's hosted on QQ, which is a Chinese site and probably can also be censored by the powers that be, but hey, I guess it's harder to censor than an ordinary WeChat video channel.
Also I just found a version of "The Sounds of April" on youtube. It's all in Chinese, no English subtitles, so it won't mean anything to you if you don't understand Chinese. But there it is. This is what they don't want the world to hear.
It's amazing to me, to see this same video posted by so many WeChat accounts, and to see it shared by so many of my WeChat friends all through the day, and finally to see somebody came up with this QR code that will make it that much harder to censor.
It feels like, we are taking a stand, that what's happening here is wrong, and it is wrong for the government to censor it from social media.
UPDATE: Here's the link to the "Sounds of April" video on YouTube with English subtitles.
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Overall
Overall, it's just more of the same. We are plugging along, getting our groceries through the group buys with our neighbors, getting covid-tested basically every day. Every day on WeChat we see posts about people who can't get medical care because of the lockdown, or about old people who have run out of food because they aren't familiar with grocery apps, or about people who tested positive and got sent to some crappy quarantine place. Every day I click on things and find that I can't watch them because they've been censored.
It's just more of the same. And based on the numbers of covid cases reported every day, it seems like it's getting better... or rather, the lockdown is effectively bringing the number of cases down, even though there are many other aspects of life which are NOT "getting better." I should say, based on the numbers, we have hope that the lockdown will eventually end.
But... I don't know what the long-term effects will be, because we are definitely seeing a different side of our government. They're not treating us right.
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Links
A lot of good articles from Sixth Tone about what life is like here in Shanghai now:
Lockdown on Aisle 5: From Shanghai Supermarket to Crisis Depot (April 22)
How the Lockdown Is Remaking Shanghai Neighborhoods (April 20)
What it Takes to Organize a Group Buy in Locked Down Shanghai (April 19) This is what's going on here. Definitely worth reading.
The Tech Support Next Door (April 19) About young people reaching out to help their elderly neighbors who don't know how to order food on a phone.
In Locked-Down Shanghai, Neighbors Band Together to Ease Crisis (April 19)
The Out of Towners Helping to Test Shanghai (April 19)
How Much is a Cat’s Love Worth? 3 Oranges. (April 15) Adorable!
And also one from BBC:
Shanghai lockdown: Whole communities relocated in anti-Covid drive (April 21)
From CNN:
Hunger and anger in Shanghai's unending lockdown nightmare (April 19) Yes, this is what it's like here.
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