Just some thoughts about masks

N95 masks. Image source.

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak 

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Hi everyone, it's been a while since my previous update on the covid situation in Shanghai. Basically, I went to the US for a month, and when I came back, nobody in China seems to care about covid any more??? In this whole time I've been back in China, I've only heard of 1 friend-of-a-friend who got covid. I'm sure over 90% of the people in Shanghai got covid in December 2022/ January 2023, so for now there is herd immunity and you get the impression that covid doesn't exist any more. (Me, my husband, and son have not had covid- we hunkered down at home in December/January when society was falling apart because everyone was infected...)

And now, here in Shanghai, I see people wearing masks noticeably less than usual. On the subway, used to be 100% of people were wearing masks, now it's maybe 90%. We went out to a place with a lot of people recently- indoors- and maybe 50% of people were wearing masks. These aren't exact numbers, just my guesses, so don't take them literally, but my point is, there is a very obvious difference in masking behavior, compared to the zero-covid-policy period.

In the US, on the other hand, sometimes I went to crowded places and not one single person was wearing a mask, except me, which was really shocking to me. The situation in China is not like that at all.

So... on the question of what's my long-term strategy for when to wear a mask... I'm aware that I'm not doing it in a way that actually makes logical sense, and I wonder if it's even possible to do it in a way that makes logical sense. Basically, I think the places where I'm most likely to get covid are: 

• at work
• from my husband or son because we live together
• from friends, because we often go out to dinner or big events together, where no one wears a mask

These are the 3 areas of highest risk, and yet, it's not really even a possibility in my mind that I'm going to wear masks in these situations. For example, at work, on any given day, I interact closely with maybe 5-10 people, so any given day is extremely low-risk, but if I keep doing that for, say, 1 year without wearing masks, I'll likely get covid... So it seems like wearing a mask is only really useful if I do it extremely long-term, and ugh, that just seems like way more trouble than it's worth. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for a whole year, to prevent (possibly?) 1 covid infection. So I don't wear a mask at work.

Last December, I wore an N95 at work. Because I saw the writing on the wall, the zero-covid policy was ending, and I knew that very soon, covid would be EVERYWHERE. See, if there's a known reason why a certain time period is more high-risk, then I would totally wear a mask. But if it's just like... just do this indefinitely, forever... I don't really want to do that.

And at home, with my husband and son, we're not gonna wear masks at home, that's just impractical, no one does that unless there's a known reason why one family member is suspected of being infected, or something. Honestly, my son being in school every day, unmasked, with 30 kids who cough on each other is probably my biggest risk, and there's not really anything I can do about that. (So, then, logically, why should I bother wearing a mask in other settings?)

And when I go out with friends, it's a fun, relaxing atmosphere and nobody wants to wear a mask. But, last December, there were a few times I went out with friends and I wore an N95 the entire time, for the reasons mentioned above. Did not eat or drink or anything. And I did not get covid, and everyone else did. So. Yeah, if I have a reason to think there's more risk, then I'd wear a mask, but if not, well, nobody wants to bother with masks.

So basically the way it shakes out right now is I wear a mask if I'm going to some public place full of strangers. Like going to a mall, taking my son to a kids' play area, etc. (But, also, we do eat in restaurants, so, we take our masks off for that.)

Basically, my habits right now are like, if I feel safe with these people, then I don't wear a mask. And if it's a bunch of strangers, then I do. But, obviously this is totally illogical, because there's no correlation between whether I have a friendly relationship with someone, and whether they have covid.

Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Image source.

So... it doesn't really make sense, what I'm doing, but since the covid virus is invisible, doesn't everyone need to sort of use a "proxy" to decide when to wear a mask? What I mean is, humans don't have an intuitive sense of when there's a higher risk of getting infected with covid (except perhaps if you literally see someone coughing), and so we have to base our decisions on other factors, which ideally would have some correlation with covid risk. But, I mean, how well can anyone really do that?

I always saw people on twitter talking about how you should wear masks not just for yourself, but to protect immunocompromised people. But I feel that's also hard to do in reality, because wearing a mask can be an inconvenience, and you don't actually know if it's helping anyone or not. Yes, like I said, I wear masks in crowded places with a bunch of strangers- that doesn't feel like an inconvenience to me- so I guess maybe I'm helping immunocompromised people there? Maybe? Who knows? Except if it's a restaurant- I don't wear a mask at a restaurant. Or sometimes I wear a mask while ordering food, but then take it off to eat, so... then... what was the point of wearing it at all? Like I said, I don't have an approach that's actually logical.

And also I feel kind of silly writing about this, because everywhere else besides China, you had to figure all this out for yourselves 3 years ago. But in China, for these 3 years, there hasn't really been any real risk of getting covid. So we wore masks because that was the rule- but we didn't wear masks at the office, or at restaurants, because that was impractical and anyway there was no real risk of getting covid so it didn't matter. (With a few exceptions, during those short periods of time when there existed a handful of known covid cases somewhere in Shanghai, and so everyone was paranoid. During those times, I saw people at the office wearing masks, and also many people avoided restaurants.) It's such a weird new thing, now that zero-covid has ended, everyone has to make their own decision about this.

And another weird thing, is that people in China are saying "the pandemic is over" (“疫情结束了”) when actually it's the zero-covid policy that's over, which means that now we actually can get covid, whereas during "the pandemic" we didn't really have any significant chance of getting covid. Honestly, Chinese people's experience of "the pandemic" was mostly about all the rules and restrictions that the government put on us. Remember when we had to get covid-tested every 2 days, for months and months? (Basically all the way from March 2022 to December 2022 in Shanghai... other cities had slightly different policies.) Remember when we had to scan a QR code every time we entered a public place, for contact-tracing purposes? Remember when anyone and everyone could ask you about your travel history and/or take your temperature, as if it was their business? Remember when every now and then, someone at work would say "oh so-and-so is working from home for the next 2 weeks because her apartment complex is in lockdown" and that was a normal thing? Remember when schools and employers would make announcements like "if you travel during the holiday, you can't come to school/work for the first 5 days after you come back to Shanghai", so then nobody with school-age kids could really take vacations anywhere?

Remember 1 year ago today, when Shanghai had already been in lockdown for an entire month, and there was no end in sight?

Here in China, it was never about "what's my actual risk of getting covid?" It was about living our lives according to all these tedious rules, and under threat of getting quarantined just because you happened to be at some place where some covid-positive person happened to be.

So when people say "the pandemic is over" (“疫情结束了”), it's because we no longer have to live by all those rules. We're done with all that. 

So... yeah... about masks, that's what I'm doing now, and I recognize that it doesn't exactly make sense, and I'll likely get covid sometime in the next year. If I knew that, say, the next month was going to be a big covid wave, I would wear an N95 and wait it out (oof, would I pull my kid out of school though? ugh that would be exhausting trying to find alternative childcare...). But instead, it's just, for the whole foreseeable future, there is a low risk, but it will happen eventually, unless I wear masks ALL THE TIME, which would be way too much trouble.

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Links:

Barrett's YouTube channel:

Chinese National Guard on the Streets of Shanghai (May 1) This is a video from a white guy in China, about how unbelievably crowded Nanjing pedestrian street (in Shanghai) is this week, because of the Labor Day holiday. Now that zero-covid is over, a lot more people are traveling during the holiday breaks. Trying to make up for those 3 years of not traveling.

In this video, you can see police and military people doing crowd control, allowing people to cross the street only at specific times, with barriers set up so that everyone is going in the same direction, etc. I am sure this is because of the risk of a stampede when there's a crowd this big.

Highly recommend the video. Especially the part where the line of military people march in formation to stand along the side of the pedestrian street crossing. The police/military people seem to be very organized and doing a good job.

South China Morning Post:

Coronavirus: China will no longer require PCR tests for travellers to the country (April 25) This is HUGE, you guys. Effective April 29, China no longer requires a PCR test for travelers entering the country. Apparently a self-test is required instead, but probably no one is going to enforce that. (How could they enforce it, anyway? If you have to show a photo of your rapid antigen test, well, how will they know it's really yours? Maybe you just got a photo from someone else.)

And, when I was in the US and needed to get a PCR test to come back to China, oh my goodness it was so expensive. It was something like $120 per person. (Whereas in China, it's something like 80 rmb, which is about $10.) The pharmacy actually called me when I made the appointment and asked if I really want to get tested- "Do you know it's $120?" lolsob

So wow, this is a big deal, not requiring testing. Saves us a lot of money and stress (trying to carefully time the test so you have the results before your flight, but also so the test sampling time is within 48 hours before the departure time of the leg of your flight specifically entering mainland China, ugh this was so complicated). Plane tickets are still RIDICULOUS though. They're about double the price they were in The Before Times.

SHINE:

China approves 1st domestic mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 (March 22) This is good news, though I don't know what the timeline is for doing an actual vaccine rollout with a Chinese mRNA vaccine.

Masks no longer mandatory, but recommended, on Shanghai Metro (March 31)

Effective immediately, China resumes inbound group tours (March 31)

CNBC:

Biden will end Covid vaccine mandates for federal workers and international travelers on May 11 (May 1) The current policy says that people entering the US must be vaccinated for covid (this does not apply to US citizens though), but that policy is ending.

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Related:

Zero-Covid is Over (December 11, 2022)
I Guess I Shouldn't Be Surprised How Fast Omicron is Spreading in China (December 17, 2022) 
Does Anyone in China NOT Have Covid? (December 24, 2022)