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| Stock photo of a woman taking her temperature because she has a fever. Image source. |
Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak
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Hi readers, I guess I should post an update about covid and living in China, because, I got covid this summer. Actually it happened while I was on vacation in the US. Kind of the worst, being sick on vacation. Me, my husband, and son all got it. (And none of us had had covid before.) I had a fever and a really bad headache for a few days.
Maybe we got infected on the flight from China to the US, because the longest leg was 12 hours and we didn't wear masks. Who knows.
One really weird thing was, when I went to urgent care in the US, the receptionist wasn't wearing a mask, and I told her I had covid, and she still didn't put on a mask, and the nurse wasn't wearing a mask either.
Anyway, I don't recommend getting covid, also I don't recommend getting covid on vacation.
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In other news: China is no longer "requiring" covid tests when entering the country. Here's an article from ABC News about it: China won't require COVID-19 tests for incoming travelers in a milestone in its reopening (August 28). I frown disapprovingly at this article, because of how it talks about "A U.S. federally funded study this month found the rapid dismantling of the 'zero COVID' policy may have led to nearly 2 million excess deaths in the following two months" ... 2 million excess deaths compared to... compared to the Before Times, or compared to if China had just let everyone have covid starting in 2020 like all the other countries did? And also it mentions China's "sluggish economic recovery" as if all the other countries have been doing any better. I don't like the bias in this article, but anyway, I want to share a link about how covid tests are no longer "required" when entering the country, so here it is.
But I put "requiring" in scare quotes because, like, this policy (as it existed as of August 2023) was such a joke. Before April 29, 2023, the policy was not a joke; China was requiring PCR tests (also known as nucleic acid tests), where you had to go to a real testing place (and pay over a hundred dollars, that's how much it cost me at Walgreens) and get a real report, and you had to time it so it was some number of hours before the takeoff time of the leg of your flight that entered mainland China, and the airline employees checked the reports very carefully before letting you on the plane, etc etc etc. This policy changed back in April- it is no longer in effect as of April 29, 2023 (here's a link to South China Morning Post, and here's where I mentioned this on my blog).
So back in April, they changed to a new policy, which is: you're supposed to do a self-test, and then when you enter China there's an app with a customs form to fill out, and one of the questions is "was your self-test positive or negative" and that's it. You just check the "negative" box, nobody asks for any proof, nobody cares, probably most travelers didn't even do a self-test, whatever.
So now they announce they're no longer requiring covid tests for people entering China, like, my dude, you stopped requiring them back in April, and since then everybody's been going through this charade where we pretend we did a self-test but nobody cares if we actually did. The only change now is the customs app no longer asks the question.
I actually know someone who tested positive in the US during the summer, flew back to China anyway, checked the "negative" box on the customs app, and when he landed in Shanghai he was randomly selected to be covid-tested, lol. A few days later, someone from the airport called him and said he had tested positive. But, they didn't tell him he should, like, do anything. Like, you tested positive, but I guess no one cares. So. Yeah. The policy was a joke.
I guess it's nice that they're changing it, but it shouldn't be reported as news, because it doesn't actually matter.
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Next, let's talk about masking habits here in Shanghai. Well, it seems like most people aren't at all worried about covid any more, and mostly aren't wearing masks. When I was on the Shanghai subway recently, I estimated maybe 20% of people were wearing masks.
I wear a mask on the subway, and in most indoor public spaces like malls, but also I eat at restaurants a lot, no mask. I feel like, I don't want to get covid again, but the probability of getting it from any single place I go is so low, it feels like it's not worth the trouble of inconveniencing myself. Wearing a mask on the subway isn't an inconvenience for me, so I do that, but if I was going to like, avoid eating at restaurants, blah that would be too much trouble.
But also, we have no way of knowing when the probability of getting covid is high or low.
So, probably the best strategy is to get as many vaccines as we can. Which, on that note, China hasn't rolled out a new booster recently, and it really seems like they should.
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And one more piece of news: Notice on Walk-in Without Appointment Visa Application Service (October 19) "To further facilitate foreign nationals’ travel to China, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates-General in the U.S. will provide walk-in visa application services starting from October 23, 2023."
When the quarantine policy ended (January 8, 2023- I wrote about it here) and then visa services for non-Chinese citizens resumed (March 15, 2023- I wrote about it here), Chinese consulates in other countries had to deal with TONS of people suddenly applying for Chinese visas. (Most were probably non-Chinese citizens who have relatives in China, whom they hadn't been able to visit for 3 years.) There were so many applications, that the consulates could not allow people to just walk in and apply, you had to try to reserve an appointment or something (I don't know the details on this).
Well it sounds like they've worked through that backlog and now there are a reasonable number of visa applicants every day, so they're back to doing walk-in applications. Very cool. China is a good place to visit, now that zero-covid is over! (Oh, actually, scratch that, plane tickets are still absurdly expensive. Maybe wait til next year.)
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That's all~ Maybe I won't have to do any more covid updates, because things in China are pretty much the same as the rest of the world, at this point.
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