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| A person and dog standing the middle of an empty street. Image source. (Lots of good photos at that link.) |
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)
Lockdown Diaries: Exciting New Definition of "Society" (May 1)
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Here's the updated timeline:
March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.
March 23-now: Second lockdown. 42 days and counting.
Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 21 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2)
Antigen self-tests: 18 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 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.)
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Some people can go out
In my previous post, I said the "precautionary areas" aren't actually letting people out of lockdown, in many cases. (See this post for the definition of "precautionary areas.") Well, today I've started to hear otherwise- I have seen a bunch of WeChat posts about people who were allowed to leave their apartment complexes, and were given very specific rules about it.
Apparently this is starting to become a thing that people in "precautionary areas" can actually do! Hooray! But let's talk about the rules.
Typically what I've seen discussed on WeChat goes like this: Each household is allowed to send 1 person to go out, twice a week. They can only go out for 2 hours, and then have to come back home. They have to stay in a predefined region that's basically a few blocks around where they live. They can't drive a car, or take any sort of vehicle.
There are probably some slight variations on those rules, depending on which area of Shanghai you're in / depending on the whims of your apartment management, but basically it goes like that.
People have been very excited to receive their permits from their apartment management, allowing them to leave. And I've seen pictures from the few grocery stores that are open, with socially-distanced lines stretching all the way down the street. Apparently the grocery stores are limiting the number of people who can enter, and saying you can only be in the store for a half hour.
And people coming out of the stores carrying bags and bags of food and toilet paper, carrying it all the way back home because there are no transportation options besides walking. (And maybe biking? I'm not sure if it's "allowed" or not.)
That's basically all you can do if they let you out of lockdown- nothing is open except a few grocery stores.
So, that's pretty cool, but also it sucks. Cool because I would be happy just to walk around on the empty streets out there, but also it sucks because our city is shut down like this, and we thought "precautionary areas" means you're out of lockdown, but this weird "you can go out for 2 hours" thing is very much NOT the "out of lockdown" that we were hoping for.
Anyway, our complex is not anywhere close to being classified as a "precautionary area", so none of this applies to us. We are definitely still in lockdown.
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Vaccines for seniors
Some good news- recently the Shanghai government has been encouraging old people to get vaccinated for covid. Apparently only 62% of people over 60 years old have been fully vaccinated (and 38% vaccinated and boosted).
There have been a few hundred covid deaths during this outbreak in Shanghai, and the vast majority of them were elderly people who were unvaccinated. As I've mentioned before, we shouldn't say "it's their fault for not being vaccinated" because during China's vaccine rollout, people who were over 75 and/or had existing health problems were discouraged from getting vaccinated (or even explicitly not allowed), because, I don't know, the medical system in China is overly cautious about vaccines.
I guess that made sense (?) back when we had 0 covid cases, and we all felt like there wasn't any real risk of getting covid anyway. But now that people in Shanghai have actually died from covid, they've changed to "hey let's hurry up and get the elderly people vaccinated." Which is good. Let's definitely get them vaccinated.
In practical terms, I am not sure how this is going to actually get done. I think they are going to set up "mobile vaccination sites"- but I haven't heard about any near us, or how you would go about getting there.
But anyway, that's a good start.
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Links from Sixth Tone:
Shanghai Supermarkets Reopen, Kind Of (May 3)
Photographs of an Empty Shanghai (May 2) These are great. So surreal to see the city so empty.
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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: More and More People Get to Go Out (a little bit)
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