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| A lockdown meme, in the style of China's old propaganda posters- it says "No more cabbage please." (If you don't get the joke: during lockdown, we can only buy vegetables in large bags where you don't even know what vegetables will be in it. You can't choose what you want. And these mystery bags have A LOT of cabbage in them. Like you would not believe how much cabbage is in my fridge right now.) 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)
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)
Lockdown Diaries: More of the Same (April 22)
Lockdown Diaries: This is a Human-Made Disaster (April 26)
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Literally the entire month of April we haven't been allowed out of our apartment complex.
Here's the updated timeline:
March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.
March 23-now: Second lockdown. 40 days and counting.
Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 20 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29)
Antigen self-tests: 17 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1)
Yes sometimes they test us twice in one day. No idea why. Just for fun I guess.
(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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Labor Day and "societal zero-covid"
May 1 is a holiday in China- it's Labor Day. So, whoop de do, we have a long weekend. It's 1 day off, but they shuffle the weekends around so we get 5 days off in a row. (Sunday April 24 and Saturday May 7 are "working weekend" days, and April 30-May 4 is the holiday.) Net 1 day of holiday.
So anyway, yesterday, April 30, it was announced that Shanghai has achieved "societal zero-covid." HOORAY...? Wait, uh what is "societal zero-covid"?
(I mention the holiday because some people were like "oh just in time for the holiday, nope that timing isn't suspicious at all...")
It turns out that "societal zero-covid" means that there were no new covid cases found "in society". There were only new covid cases in locked down areas and centralized quarantine. (As far as I know, "centralized quarantine" means people who were taken to quarantine because they are close contacts of a known covid-positive person.)
So, remember that classification system, where each apartment complex was labelled as either "locked down", "managed and controlled", or "precautionary"? Turns out when they say "in society", that means the precautionary areas.
Okay...
So in other words, they didn't discover any new covid cases in places that are are known to have not had any covid cases for the past 14 days.
That's... uh... kind of anticlimactic?
I mean, it's good in the sense that it shows the "precautionary areas" truly are covid-free, so the people there should, in theory, be allowed to go out and mingle. But also, like, much side-eye at treating this like it's some big success.
Oh and also, I have seen a lot of people posting on WeChat "our compound is a precautionary area, but they still haven't let us out." I think I have only seen 1 of my friends saying they were actually allowed to leave their apartment complex and go to a grocery store. So these "precautionary areas" aren't all they're cracked up to be. A lot of them are still in lockdown anyway, and nobody knows how long.
On the other hand, some people on WeChat are like "hey I don't care how much they redefine words and make up fake data, as long as it gets us out of lockdown sooner." (Personally I don't think the numbers are "fake", but they are definitely presented in a way that's VERY misleading. Like once you actually find out what the definition of "society" is, for example, you realize that the stats were saying something completely different than what it looked like at first.)
Anyway, our complex is still classified as "locked down" due to recent covid cases.
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Here's an insight from my husband, Hendrix: He says that international people tend to blame the policies, and Chinese people blame the management. So we have a lot of international people in Shanghai saying "this is why we need to end zero-covid, end lockdown, omicron isn't that bad" etc. Whereas Chinese people think zero-covid and lockdowns are the right strategy, but clearly the people in charge have totally botched it in Shanghai.
I find I'm closer to the Chinese side of it, then.
(And yes, when you read the comments sections on English WeChat posts, vs Chinese ones, yeah you can see the difference.)
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Other than that, I don't have any exciting updates. We continue to get food from group buys. We continue to let our kid watch Pixar movies all day because my husband and I are both trying to work full-time jobs (lol we don't get much done though...).
But many links for you today...
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Links:
New York Times [behind a paywall unfortunately]:
China’s Covid Lockdown Outrage Tests Limits of Triumphant Propaganda (April 27) I don't really agree with the parts about how this is causing a lot of Chinese people to question President Xi's leadership and the zero-covid policy, but the rest of this article is good. It talks about a lot of things that I have mentioned on my blog, and has links to back them up. Especially the parts about how the government is trying to push this "everything is fine!" narrative, but all over social media, we see that's not true. We see a lot of posts being censored (after being viewed and shared by thousands of people, though). It's a losing battle for the censors, because they can't censor reality. We KNOW this is a disaster.
That's Shanghai:
Some good articles from "That's Shanghai", but I can only access them with my VPN turned off, so I am not sure if these pages will load if you are outside of China. If any readers are interested in these articles and can't get the pages to load, I will see if I can find some workaround- just let me know in the comments section.
Shanghai Reports 0 Societal Cases Again, Here's How It Works (May 1)
My Story: Stranded in Shanghai Pudong Airport for 2 Weeks (April 28) "My experience at the airport was horrible; I wouldn’t wish it on another fellow human being. In total, I was stuck in the departure section of the airport for a full two weeks – with no food available. Since the city is in complete lockdown, all restaurants are closed in the airport too, so I relied on the few snacks I brought and generous gifts of food from people I met."
Meet the Artist Behind the POPaganda Posters Going Viral (April 24) These are hilarious. They are memes about lockdown, in the style of old Chinese propaganda posters. Here is my favorite:
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| If you don't get the joke- most grocery apps have a certain time (for example, 6 am) that they open for new orders, and during lockdown a lot of people set their alarm for 5:50 and button mash like crazy at 6:00, and sometimes you get lucky and your order actually goes through. Within a few minutes, all delivery slots for the day have been taken. |
My Story: COVID-19 Case Transferred Due To Unlivable Conditions (April 22) "When I tried to plug in my phone to charge, the power strip exploded! ... The facility is like an unfinished building, with no real floor. The toilets are filthy with no privacy or proper drainage."
Sixth Tone:
Thousands of Villagers Return Home After Their Village Was Sterilized (April 28) Here's an update on Beicai, the village in Shanghai where residents were all forced to leave their homes, which I mentioned in my April 18 post. It's a video about how the baymaxes disinfected all the homes and public areas, and then the residents were able to return home. I also saw a post on WeChat today from a vet, about how some of their employees are working at the Beicai pet quarantine center- so, don't know the whole story on that, but I had been concerned that they were going to kill pets in Beicai, so, hopefully not. (UPDATE: My May 7 post has more information about the pet quarantine center in Beicai.)
Shanghai Lockdown Is Now Part of Animal Crossing Game (April 26) Love this.
And a cute youtube video:
Shanghai Lockdown DRONE Party 2022! 上海封城阳台派对 (April 3) I saw this fun video on WeChat in the early days of lockdown, turns out it's on youtube too, so here's the link. Apparently the woman who made this works at Shanghai Disneyland, and a lot of the international employees working at Disneyland all live in the same building. And there they are:
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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: Some People Can Go to the Grocery Store
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