Lockdown 3: This Time There’s A Point

Regular readers will be aware that I am based in Shanghai, China. We had to undergo a full lockdown in March-April 2020 to prevent the initial rise of Covid-19, and then Shanghai had another in April-May this year to stop a local wave taking hold. Since that time China maintained its zero-Covid policy, up until just over a week ago, when the requirements for regular testing, showing negative results on entry to pretty much everywhere, and having positive test cases (and often also close contacts) pulled out of home to go to quarantine centres were all removed…with immediate effect.

Since then, the effects have been remarkable. Positive tests are through the roof. Instead of asking ‘do you know anyone who has it?’, its more a case of ‘do you know anyone who doesn’t have it?’ China has stopped reporting case numbers, mainly because without the regular testing no-one really knows what they are any more. Everyone is either sitting at home recovering, or sitting at home hiding.

Which is why I find myself sitting on my own in a hotel room, across the road from my apartment. I woke up on Tuesday morning coughing, and got out of the house sharpish just in case. I have used of a shared office which I thought would be empty on the day, so I went there to see if I could bang out some work and clear my to-do list in case I was sick and would be out of action. I started being conscious of everyone around me and everything I touched; once you think you have it, you don’t want to be responsible for spreading it, not least in a society where (up to that point) everyone was still extremely scared of what it might do them.

On the way home I stopped at a pharmacy to buy some rapid antigen test kits. Sold out. I went to a second pharmacy. Sold out. A third. Sold out. Finally in the seventh they had some; I asked for three, and the shop assistant told me ‘you might as well take 10.’ I was glad that I did.

Sitting on a bench outside my apartment block, I took the test and waited for the line(s) to appear. Sure it enough it came through — parallel lines. I was positive. The worst part then was to follow, in that I had to call home and tell my wife the news. I suggested that I go and stay in the cheap hotel across the road from us, a suggestion that was enthusiastically agreed with.

So I found myself in yet another lockdown, albeit this time self-imposed. After 3 years of wanting to go out but not allowed to without checks, now I could go anywhere legally but didn’t want to. And nor did anyone else.

Having been in China during the time when Covid had not spread, I had been watching the accounts from around the world as to what other places had been experiencing. Now it was here — and truly here, not just worried about being in the shadows as in the past. People who have not been China tend to assume that being such a big, populous place it will not change very fast, turning slowly like an oil tanker, but that is not my experience; with the Government’s overall control of society, things can change immediately should it be desired. Did the change in rules open the floodgates for the number of cases to accelerate? Or were the cases going so fast already that they figured ‘what’s the point’ and gave up trying to hold back the tide? We may never know. But I can tell you that last week life was one thing, and this week it is something entirely different.

I was naturally relieved that my symptoms were not too severe. I was tired and was coughing a lot, but it was the proverbial ‘just like flu’. What I had not expected was just how contagious this was proving to be; as the organsier of our football league, I was getting contacted by member teams saying that their whole squad was out sick. 16 people went to a party and 15 of them had it now. Our entire company had caught it from one meeting, to the point that there was no-one to go into work to keep things operating. In the Western press there are a lot of stories about Beijing cases spreading wildly, and I don’t doubt that they are, but don’t think that it’s not just as bad anywhere else. Shanghai is crazy right now & I would imagine the city will be a ghost town for the next few weeks until such time that pretty much everyone has had it, and they start venturing out again. What’s happening in other Chinese cities you will have to dig into the depths of Chinese social media to find out what people are saying; but I can guess.

For me, I’ve been sitting in this hotel room for 5 days. I’ve been working in the day and catching up on my to-watch movie list by night. I was hoping 5 days would do the job but you see from the pictures above I keep scoring two lines on the tests, so I need to hold on a bit longer until I can sheepishly venture home. Life in China: it’s never dull.