 |
| Entrance to a children's fever clinic. Image source. |
Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak
---
Well, the title of this post is a bit of an exaggeration. Me, my husband, and son haven't had covid. We've been hunkered down at home the entire week. I'm sure if I asked around I could find a few more people who haven't had covid.
But, I mean, wow. Scroll through WeChat, the entire thing is people talking about how many days they've had a fever, how many self-tests they've done, what their temperature is, how long they stood in line at a pharmacy, etc. Every mom group is a constant stream of "my baby has covid, at what point do I take her to a doctor?"
Food deliveries are much slower than normal, because so many of the delivery workers have covid and aren't working, plus there's a much larger number of people ordering than normal. Restaurants are understaffed because their employees all have covid. Yesterday we ordered a food delivery- it said it would take 1 hour to arrive, but it took 2 hours. The delivery guy told me it's because when he got to the restaurant to pick it up, the food wasn't even ready yet.
Getting packages delivered is also much slower than normal. Usually when I order something online, if it's shipping from Shanghai, it arrives the next day, and if it's shipping from somewhere else in China, it takes 2-3 days. But right now so many delivery workers are out sick. A lot of the Christmas presents I ordered were delayed several days.
The Shanghai subway system has reduced the number of trains running because so many staff are out sick. (And also, most people are staying home- way fewer passengers on the subway than normal.)
My husband and I worked from home the entire week. And our son's school is closed- all the schools in Shanghai are closed. I heard from my coworkers that very few people were at the office this week.
Our son had a fever this week- I'm pretty sure it's not covid, because we tested him a bunch of times with the rapid-antigen self-test kits and he was always negative. And my husband and I have just a little bit of a cold- if it was covid, I think the 3 of us would all be doing much worse. But, the thing is, we wish we could take him to see a doctor, but probably everyone there has covid. We're not gonna go anywhere near a fever clinic. I'm scared to even ask what the situation is at the hospitals/ fever clinics in Shanghai right now. I heard rumors that there are people standing outside the hospitals selling children's ibuprofen for thousands of RMB per bottle (hundreds of dollars), because the hospitals have run out of medicine. Yikes.
Oh, and also a new policy was announced: If you have covid, you can still go to work. I guess because businesses just couldn't handle it when so many employees were out sick. But, uhhhhh, telling people they can/should/must go out and interact with people when they're covid-positive is just a really bad policy.
Doctors and nurses are continuing to work even though they have covid.So, uh, that's how it's going here. On December 11 I wrote Zero-Covid is Over. At that point, I didn't personally know anyone who had had covid. (Remember my December 2021 post, I Don't Know Anyone in China Who Has Had Covid? Well, as of 2 weeks ago, I did know a few friend-of-a-friend's who had had covid during the past 3 years. But nobody that I knew personally.)
And now, 2 weeks later, probably the majority of my friends here in Shanghai have gotten covid. (I don't know if it's the majority, but it certainly feels that way. It certainly feels like "everyone has covid." Obviously, as a math person I have to tell you, you can't get a sense for actual percentages just from reading anecdotes on WeChat- you would have to get a representative sample and ask everyone if they got covid or not in the past 2 weeks. So I have no idea about the actual percentage.)
Here's a bunch of links from SHINE, to serve as a timeline for how things have developed. Go ahead and read between the lines and see how it gets worse and worse:
What you should not do with medicines in COVID treatment (December 19)
Hospitals gear up to handle fever patient surge (December 19)
Shanghai opens thousands of fever clinics in local communities as infections surge (December 19)
China's Guangzhou increases fever clinics to brace for COVID-19 peak (December 19)
Everything you need to know about home quarantine (December 20)
Online food delivery services struggle with staff shortages (December 20)
Employees with mild or no COVID symptoms encouraged to return to work (December 20) Oh my god.
What you need to know about COVID treatment and recovery (December 20)
Shanghai Metro alters service plans amid infection surge (December 20)
No PCR report required for outpatients, emergency (December 20) Hospitals* no longer require a PCR result when you come to the outpatient or emergency department.
China producing 60 million COVID-19 antigen test kits daily (December 20)
Testing booths turned into fever clinics as China battles COVID-19 (December 21) This is about Shenzhen- I don't know if it's also happening in other cities too.
Amid crowded fever clinics, patients urged to use Internet service, grassroots facilities (December 21)
Hotels encourage COVID positive guests to remain in rooms and notify hotel staff (December 21)
How to use 'mutual aid' platform to get COVID medicines (December 21) The hospitals and pharmacies are running out of medicine- so now there's an app where you can try to find someone near you who has extra.
Free anti-fever drugs distributed in cities to combat COVID (December 22)
China promotes booster shots with variety of vaccine choices (December 22)
Health experts shed light on key COVID-19 concerns through FAQs (December 22)
China work at full steam to boost medicine supply for epidemic control (December 22)
Reduce unnecessary social gatherings! Health experts recommend ahead of the holiday season (December 23) Note: "the holiday season" here doesn't mean Christmas, it means January 1 new year and Chinese New Year (late January).
No PCR, antigen test required to end home quarantine (December 23) So, literally no restrictions or enforcement of covid-positive people doing home quarantine.
Multiple factors cause rise of severe COVID cases in Beijing: health experts (December 23)
*Note about the term "hospital" in China: In China, basically all the doctors work at hospitals. When you go for a completely normal doctor's appointment, it's at a hospital. It can be alarming for friends in the US when you say "I was sick, so I went to the hospital" because in the US, you only go to a hospital for something really serious; for a normal boring sickness you just go to the doctor's office, not a hospital. In China that's not the case- basically all the medical care happens at hospitals. So I am aware that sometimes I might be accidentally making things sound more serious than they are, because to Americans, "going to the hospital" is WAY more of a big deal than it is in China.
---
Quarantine for international travelers
The policy for people entering mainland China is still 5+3 (ie, 5 days of hotel quarantine, plus 3 days of home quarantine, but in reality it seems to be 8+0 actually). At this point, this policy makes no sense, because covid is EVERYWHERE in China.
I'm in some WeChat groups about international travel, and there have been LOTS of rumors shared in those groups. I forgot to put this in last week's post, but: On December 10, there were rumors that some people had arrived on international flights at Pudong airport (in Shanghai) and were covid-tested and sent home- NOT sent to the quarantine hotels. I don't think this rumor is true, though, because in the travel groups people were asking around to see if anyone in the groups had arrived in Pudong and could tell us what happened firsthand, and no one was found who had actually had this experience.
And then on December 12, there was a screenshot shared around in the travel groups- it was a screenshot of an article in Chinese, which said the Chinese government has announced that on December 19, the quarantine policy for people arriving in mainland China will change to 2+3, and then on January 9 it will change to 0+3. (Which is basically the same as no quarantine at all- nobody is enforcing those 3 days of home quarantine at this point. Nobody's enforcing anything at all.) When this was shared, a lot of people questioned the source- all we had was this 1 screenshot- if it was a real policy announced by the Chinese government, wouldn't there be, like, news articles from actual news sites about it...?
(And then December 19 came and went and no changes were announced. The policy is still 5+3. There are people in the travel groups saying "I'm in the quarantine hotel now, the policy is still 5+3.")
And then, on December 20, there were reports that international travelers arriving in Chengdu were only asked to pay for 2 days in the quarantine hotel, rather than 5. And people in Chengdu being let out of the quarantine hotel after 2 days and allowed to go home. So everybody started saying that they're "testing" a new 2+3 policy in Chengdu, and soon it will become the policy in all of China. But again, none of this is really certain... We know that some people in Chengdu really were let out of quarantine after only 2 days, but we don't know if this applies to all the quarantine hotels in Chengdu, we don't know if there were some other requirements that people needed to meet in order to be let out after only 2 days (for example, having a residence in Chengdu)- we just don't know all the details. To say "they are testing this new policy in Chengdu" is kind of jumping to conclusions too fast.
And then, on December 21, there was an article from HKS, a Hong Kong news site: 中国将于2023年1月3日全面开放入境措施 ["China to fully open entry measures from January 3, 2023"- meaning, no quarantine at all]. Screenshots of this article were shared in the travel groups, and some WeChat accounts for international people in China also shared this news. Bloomberg has also shared it (though their article is paywalled). But... this is also not really a credible source- why is this 1 Hong Kong news site the only source? If this was a real policy, the Chinese government would have made a real announcement about it.
So anyway, rumors flying around EVERYWHERE about the quarantine policy. It obviously makes no sense to keep quarantining people when they enter mainland China, now that covid is running around everywhere here. We all know the policy will change soon to reflect this reality. And when that happens, all the international people who haven't been able to go home and see their families will jump on planes and go. (I've already heard that ticket prices have increased because of these rumors.)
It's going to happen soon. But I don't believe any rumors I see on WeChat.
Here's a good article from Sixth Tone on it: China’s Inbound Travelers Confused Over Quarantine as COVID Spreads Unchecked (December 23)
---
Shady reporting on covid deaths
Umm, what is this: Doctor allays fear over elderly deaths due to COVID-19 (December 21)
Very few elderly people actually die from the novel coronavirus, a doctor said on Tuesday, as the country reported five new COVID-19 deaths for Monday.
Wang Guiqiang, director of the Infectious Disease Department at Peking University First Hospital, made the comments at a press conference in response to recent discussions on social media about overload at funeral homes in China.
"The main cause of death is the underlying disease," he explained. "Only the deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting COVID would be classified as COVID-19 casualties. Heart attacks or cardiovascular disease causing death of infected people will not get that classification."
Beijing reported five COVID-related deaths on Tuesday, following two on Monday, which were the first fatalities reported in weeks. In total, China has reported 5,242 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, central Hubei Province, in late 2019, a very low toll by global standards.
I feel like this is not how it works? If someone with covid dies and they have "underlying diseases", then China isn't going to count that as a covid death?
Okay, so... I'm not sure how this compares to the definitions used in other countries, but it sounds very shady to me. From now on, we can't trust China's data about the number of covid deaths.
---
Feelings about the end of zero-covid
This is bad. Society is falling apart right now. So many people are sick, there aren't even enough staff for businesses to stay open and do essential things like make food.
This first wave will last maybe 1-2 weeks, and then people will recover and society will be okay. I guess...?
I'm trying not to get covid, and I don't want my son to get covid... and this terror I feel, like covid is just EVERYWHERE and I can't just keep working from home because HR is giving me a hard time about it and I have to figure out childcare because the schools are closed, and how long is this going to go on- this is exactly what everyone outside of China has been dealing with for 3 years. Man, you guys, this sucks.
So here's a question: Is this better or worse than being in lockdown?
Ughhh. Well... I want to say this is better... because the constant stress of following all those zero-covid rules (about how often you have to get tested, etc) and the fear that you could suddenly get locked down... and the trauma we all have from the Shanghai lockdown (2 and a half months)... it was so tough to live with that, and I didn't want it any more. And, also, I knew that if zero-covid ended, I would be able to go back to the US and see my family.
And covid itself... if it's just feeling terrible for 1 week and then you're okay, well that's less bad than living under the threat of lockdown. But covid can be a lot worse than that, for some people. People do still die from it, even though omicron is "mild" or whatever (I personally don't think it's accurate to say omicron is "mild"- I have heard from friends the past 2 weeks saying it's the worst flu they ever had), and people can have long-term health problems from covid.
It feels like I've moved from one psychological nightmare to another, but at least this one is the same nightmare the rest of the world is already living in- so it won't stop me from going to see my family.
And part of me is saying, "I wonder how history will look at the zero-covid policy. Will historians of the future say 'China saved millions of lives, China handled covid better than most other countries' [which I think is true]?" But part of me already knows the answer- at least for US news sources and US history books, everything the Communist Party does is automatically evil. History isn't going to actually look at zero-covid objectively and judge it on its own merits. History won't even give it a chance- it's obviously bad because we all know how Communist China doesn't care about human rights, and that's that.
And thinking about comparing lockdowns to the current situation- I'll never forget how bad the news reporting from western media sites has been. These past 3ish years under zero-covid, reporting on an "outbreak" in this or that Chinese city, making it sound like a similar situation to what one might call an "outbreak" in the US. Makes me so mad. In China, under the zero-covid policy, an "outbreak" was like, 10 cases, and the main thing that happened was everyone in the city got locked down and/or tested, and then after a few weeks the numbers were back to 0 and everyone could resume normal life. Whereas, in the US, or any other country, covid spread out of control- it's been spreading out of control for almost 3 years.
I'm still mad about when I was in a goddamn lockdown and I had to spend my time blogging about how CNN was misrepresenting the specific ways that it sucked to be in Shanghai right then.
Another thing about lockdowns: Lockdowns don't get you any closer to herd immunity. You have a lockdown, you sit at home until the numbers are back down to 0, then you end the lockdown, but you're at the exact same place you were before. Another outbreak could happen and cause another lockdown. You're just delaying the inevitable.
Whereas, letting covid spread through the whole population... after that, you still will have additional "waves" in the future... and people do still die from covid, or get long-covid... I want to say this is better, but I don't know.
From a human psychology point of view, there's something that feels better about having your fate in your own hands- I can choose whether to go out or not, I can choose whether to wear a mask- rather than being blocked by the government. (Though this oversimplifies it, because there are people whose jobs require them to interact with a lot of people, there are people with chronic illnesses who now no longer have the "choice" to live in a society where people aren't spreading covid everywhere, etc.) To some extent it is a good thing for it to be in your control- because the government doesn't actually care about you as an individual. But, also, there are big society-wide problems that can't be solved through individual people choosing to "do the right thing" or whatever. (Paying taxes to maintain societal infrastructure like roads/bridges, fighting climate change, etc...) There really are situations where the only way to solve the problem is for the government to make rules that restrict everyone to some extent. I personally think covid was one of those situations- and the US government completely failed at it. The Chinese government... well, yeah there are a lot of things to criticize about the zero-covid policy. Let's definitely criticize it. But it's better than what the US did.
Yeah...
And one more thing: The Chinese government has totally botched this transition. Like, why wasn't there any propaganda about "flatten the curve"? Why were all the testing restrictions removed, and no new restrictions added, like for example, no indoor dining allowed? Why was it just the same advice we've been hearing for 3 years- masks, social distancing, wash your hands- which we all tune out because we've heard it so much?
I've been saying for a long time on this blog, it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Ending zero covid doesn't mean we have to 躺平 ["tǎng píng" - "lie flat" - this is a slang term that means completely giving up]. I really didn't expect China would suddenly go from "zero covid" to "ALL THE COVID." The Chinese government really did 躺平 [tǎng píng]. (And maybe someone will say, omicron is so infectious, it wasn't possible to avoid this kind of spread. I don't really agree with that- I think there were a lot of things that could have been done better.)
So... yeah those are my conflicting feelings on it.
---
Links
Sixth Tone
With More People Getting Sick, China’s Restaurants Are Struggling (December 20)
Winding Down ‘Zero-COVID’: The View From an Urban Village (December 20)
Shanghai Races to Vaccinate Older Residents as COVID Runs Wild (December 21)
As Couriers Fall Sick, Chinese Cities Ask Residents to Fill In (December 21)
Staying Negative: New Covid Policies Bring Memes Aplenty (December 23) Lol, I love this! And yeah, covid-positive people are called "sheep" because both are pronounced "yang."
SHINE
Expert predicts increase in COVID cases but threat lower (December 17) Lol, love to read this propaganda about how the Chinese government very carefully considered the changes in the death rate from covid, to decide when to end the zero-covid policy, and did so at just the right time. Come on. Multiple cities were having omicron outbreaks with lockdowns that stretched on for months, and people were mad as hell, with protests breaking out across the country. That's why they ended zero-covid. They couldn't get it under control, and continuing to try only made things worse.The benefits and pitfalls of learning to live with coronavirus (December 17) OMG, this article is hilarious! Well, the content of the article itself is fine- it's basically "here are the practical ways that ending zero-covid is affecting the average person, and how they feel about it" but this is after almost 3 years of telling us how covid is SO BAD we need to PUT OUR LIVES ON HOLD and LOCK DOWN MILLIONS OF PEOPLE and zero-covid is THE BEST EVER.
The New York Times
As Cases Explode, China’s Low Covid Death Toll Convinces No One (December 23) Yep.
No comments:
Post a Comment