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| Traffic on a busy street in Chengdu after lockdown ends. Image source. |
Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak
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Hi everyone, here's another update about covid in Shanghai and the rest of China.
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Guizhou bus crash
Sixth Tone: 27 Killed as Bus Taking People to COVID Quarantine Crashes in China (September 19)
The Guardian: Anger in China after 27 people killed in Covid quarantine bus crash (September 18)
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Chengdu lockdown ends
SHINE: Weeks-long lockdown lifted on southwest city of Chengdu (September 19)
Bloomberg: China Lifts Two-Week Lockdown in Chengdu, City of 21 Million (September 18) "Officials in Chengdu locked down sooner in their outbreak than authorities in Shanghai. That appears to have largely avoided the food and medicine shortages, manufacturing halts and supply-chain snarls that spurred protests and unrest in China’s most metropolitan city, dragging on growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Chengdu’s lockdown has been more in line with Shenzhen’s earlier in the year, with movement restrictions in the technology hub eased after about a week, as cases ebbed." Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Not every lockdown is as bad as the Shanghai lockdown.
Al Jazeera: China lifts weeks-long lockdown on southwest Chengdu (September 19)
So Chengdu's lockdown was 2-3 weeks. In Shanghai, we were in lockdown for 2 and a half months (some parts of Shanghai it was "only" 2 months though). Still bad, though.
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Costco
Sometime around September 12, there was a video being shared on WeChat, showing a Costco in Shanghai where customers were abandoning their shopping carts and rushing out of the store, because apparently there might have been a positive covid case there.
The video can be found here (I don't know how well it will load if you're not in China though).
It's just another example of how there's this fear of getting locked down. I can really understand that panic and just running out. Some of the online commenters noted there's no point to running- you already scanned the location code (which registers your personal information when you enter a location), so they're going to find you anyway. But even if it doesn't exactly make sense, I can understand why people reacted that way.
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Hebei app
So you know how I always talk about the "health code" app? Well, the one I use is specific to Shanghai. It seems each Chinese province has their own app. And just recently I saw a WeChat post from someone who lives in Hebei province (not to be confused with Hubei province, where Wuhan is) who was happy to report that the Hebei health code app finally accepts passport numbers! In other words, international people have been unable to register on this app, until now, because it required a Chinese ID number. So every time you go somewhere that you have to show your health code (the WeChat commenter only mentioned hospitals- I suspect that it's not like in Shanghai where all public places ask you to show it) you have to have a whole conversation with the underpaid security guard about how we live in a society where there are always computer systems that non-Chinese are blocked from using. Blahhhh.
Anyway, yay, it accepts passport numbers now!
(And my experience with the Shanghai health code app, as an immigrant, has been overall okay. There are always a few little extra confusing steps for people who don't have Chinese ID cards, and the pandemic workers whose job it is to know how to do it don't know how to do it, but at least it doesn't seem that Shanghai's app ever runs into a situation where the final answer is literally you can't do it and you have to just give up.)
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Links
Sixth Tone
All’s Not Well at Shanghai’s Tianzifang Tourist Hotspot (September 13) "Three months since Shanghai lifted its COVID-19 restrictions on June 1, its scars are still visible in places like Tianzifang, as shuttered shops and reduced traffic remind visitors and business owners of the lockdown’s economic toll."
Citing COVID, China Discourages Domestic Holiday Travel, Again (September 9) "China will tighten COVID-19 restrictions for domestic travel and group gatherings until the end of October to avoid more local outbreaks, the country’s health authority said Thursday, dampening holiday spirits ahead of one of the country’s major travel seasons." This is related to Mid-Autumn Festival (September 10-12) and National Day (October 1-7). National Day is the second-biggest holiday of the year in China (Chinese New Year is the biggest) and in the Before Times there was always a HUGE amount of people traveling.
SHINE
Shanghai initiates 'landing PCR test' for all arrivals (September 19) "All arrivals are required to receive a PCR test within 24 hours. Those who fail to do so in 48 hours will get a pop-up notification on their health code". (This is specifically about domestic travelers- international travel has a WHOLE TON of other rules.)
48-hour PCR report required to take Line 11 to Kunshan (September 10) Kunshan is a city near Shanghai, and actually Shanghai's subway line 11 goes all the way out to Kunshan. There are people who live in Kunshan and commute to Shanghai for work. So the new policy is that you need a negative nucleic acid test from within the past 48 hours to take the subway between Shanghai and Kunshan (so this is a bit more strict than the 72-hour result you need to go to public places in general in Shanghai).
People from outside Shanghai must report online before arrival (September 10) "People traveling or returning to Shanghai from other provinces are required to report their itinerary online before arrival in a new measure to contain the transmission of the coronavirus."
48-hour PCR report required to take flights, trains, long-distance buses (September 8)
Did the regulatory authorities go overboard in slapping Paris Baguette with a 'hefty' fine? (September 8) So the story here is that, during the Shanghai lockdown, Paris Baguette (a bakery chain) was making their baked goods at a makeshift facility that didn't meet food safety standards, and they are now being fined for that.
It seems like public opinion on this is in support of Paris Baguette. During lockdown, when people couldn't even get food, and the government didn't do its job, Paris Baguette did their best to get food to customers, and now the government is punishing them for it? (Though I did see 1 comment from someone who works in the food/beverage industry, who was like "food safety is no joke, you guys.")
Reuters
Hong Kong will scrap COVID hotel quarantine from Sept. 26 (September 23) "People [arriving in Hong Kong] will be allowed to go to work or school but will not be allowed to enter bars or restaurants for three days." Hong Kong has had different covid policies than mainland China for a while. This new change is another example of how big the difference is- mainland China's policy is currently 7 days of hotel quarantine + 3 days of home quarantine (but from what I've heard, in reality it's 10 days of hotel quarantine + 0 home quarantine), and it's a real quarantine where you literally can't open your door. Not like what they're doing in Hong Kong where you can go out but not, like, too much.
So it's good news for people who need to travel to Hong Kong.
BBC
China Covid lockdowns leave residents short of food and essential items (September 12) These things are true, but the article makes you think that it's all of China having these problems- whereas in reality it's a handful of specific places. (Which is a problem I see in basically all western news reporting about covid in China.)
Some of these things- "In Yining city, the capital of Ili, a shared online document with over 300 urgent requests for food, medicine and sanitary pads was widely circulated." That happened in Shanghai too, and I can feel the fear and desperation and helplessness, reading this article. It's bad, it's really bad what's happening in areas of China where entire cities get locked down.
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