https://archive.is/W1yZs

After three years of zero-Covid, nothing feels real in newly ‘free’ Shanghai
new
Officials locked down people in lavatories and swabbed fish. Now
restrictions are no more but millions remain traumatised
Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
CHINATOPIX
Cameron Wilson, Shanghai
Saturday January 07 2023, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times
I’ve lived in Shanghai for 17 years, enjoying a ringside view of China’s
rise — and countless wonderful adventures. But the last 12 months have
left me feeling like an unwitting participant in some kind of
hidden-camera television show. For a long time, every aspect of life in
China was shaped by zero-Covid restrictions.
Then, just before Christmas, the policy was suddenly and unexpectedly
abandoned. For large numbers of people, the consequences have been
tragic. But for many others, the whole experience has resembled a
practical joke so elaborate that the late Jeremy Beadle would surely
have considered it to be his finest work.
Just a month ago, if you were deemed even to have been a close contact
of someone who tested positive, you could be dragged off by dabai
(health workers in white protective suits) to a grotty isolation centre
and forced to stay there until you tested negative. Today? The official
message is: it’s fine to turn up at work with the very same virus that
we were told until late last year was a mortal threat.
The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
tedium of daily testing
The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
tedium of daily testing
CAMERON WILSON
Sure enough, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours have fallen like
dominoes. Everyone has. Each day brought a new empty seat in the office,
a new social media post of a positive Covid test. After three years of
barely anyone catching the disease, the sudden onslaught has created an
overwhelming sense of confusion. Many were expecting mild, if any,
symptoms, because the government published figures every day emphasising
that the vast majority of cases were asymptomatic. But in fact almost
everyone I know was knocked out for days at home with a heavy flu-like
illness, having forgotten that the official definition of asymptomatic
just meant not requiring hospital treatment.
It’s hard to overstate just how intrusive zero-Covid was in Shanghai,
particularly in 2022. You had to do a PCR test every other day and show
a negative result to enter restaurants, shops and your workplace, or use
public transport. You name it, you had to scan a code with an app on
your phone to do it. Forgetting to do a test on time meant abandoning
any plans you had to leave your house that day. Your health code app
dominated every hour of your existence. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t.
Right now the city is starting to recover and you can freely enter all
the bars, restaurants and shops which didn’t go bankrupt — as a great
many did.
But a feeling of mass discombobulation remains. Most people were fine
with the first couple of years of zero-Covid — millions of lives were
saved. Unfortunately, the virus mutated into something significantly
less deadly but a lot more transmissible. And rather than face up to the
inevitable and make an exit plan, China escalated the policy and the
madness started.
The Shanghai lockdown saw 26 million people unable to leave their homes
for more than two months, subjected to mandatory testing every day, and
forcibly taken to isolation centres if testing positive. Some residents
were even physically sealed inside buildings. The courier delivery
system collapsed, leaving people to rely on government food handouts to
survive. Every day, social media brought weird, sometimes disturbing
spectacles. Videos of people jumping from buildings. Left-behind pets
killed by healthcare workers. Hysterical kids being separated from
parents taken to isolation. Suffering people walking naked in the
street. Thousands of neighbours wailing crazily in unison. Meanwhile,
official propaganda rubbed it in everyone’s faces by blaming “foreign
forces” for a protest that saw millions of hungry residents bang pots
and pans at their kitchen windows each night. Today, everyone is asking
if all of this really happened — because in the end it was all for
absolutely nothing.
Seeing this happen in China’s biggest and most modern city seemed
unreal. It was a trauma, which being honest, I have not fully recovered
from, and I don’t think most others have either.
The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
YANG JIANZHENG/VCG/GETTY IMAGES
Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
CAMERON WILSON
The months following the end of the lockdown brought even more bizarre
phenomena, as the authorities cracked down on the increasingly
transmissible Omicron variant. No act, no matter how contradictory,
absurd or ridiculous, was considered overzealous in the “fight against
the virus”. Live fish had their gills swabbed by people in white suits.
Bars, nightclubs and sports stadiums remained closed, yet the metro
carried millions of passengers every day. Public health officials
visited a restaurant which only sold pizza and insisted on putting up
campaign posters saying “use separate serving chopsticks to prevent
spreading viruses”. Regular Covid outbreaks and brutally uncompromising
enforcement meant people suddenly found themselves locked down in
unusual locations such as public lavatories, offices or strangers’
homes. Schools were constantly closing and opening. At one point a video
of an unfortunate goose being anally probed by a government inspector at
a wet market made the rounds.
Eventually, the pressure began to take its toll in higher circles. The
Communist Party’s 20th national congress — widely hoped to bring the end
of zero-Covid, didn’t deliver in that regard but brought the spectacle
of a confused-looking former president, Hu Jintao, being led out of the
arena. As usual, nobody really knew what was going on, but something had
changed. In November, the sight of maskless fans partying at the World
Cup in Qatar did not go unnoticed by the Chinese population — nor the
authorities, who censored crowd scenes on state TV broadcasts. Before we
knew it, zero-Covid had delivered the ultimate in unthinkable
developments, when protesters in Shanghai called for the end of the
policy and for Xi Jinping to step down. Weeks later, zero-Covid ended at
the worst time possible — the start of winter — leaving no time for any
preparation such as stockpiling medicines or finishing vaccination
programmes.
Nobody knows how many people have succumbed to the virus since then,
because the country has stopped publishing daily case data. However,
there have been reports of crematoriums and hospitals becoming
overwhelmed, and on Wednesday the World Health Organisation said that
China was under-representing the true impact and in particular
underplaying the number of deaths.
In my household, however, the most utterly peculiar three years of our
lives ended in typically perplexing style last week. My father-in-law —
in his late sixties and of the very demographic that zero-Covid was
meant to protect, reacted to testing positive by sauntering out to buy
several £5 bottles of huangjiu (yellow wine). He polished them off that
evening and was first in our family to recover just a day later. I half
expected him to take off his mask to reveal that Beadle was still alive.
Cameron Wilson is a freelance journalist based in Shanghai

--
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Michael Ejercito wrote:

>https://archive.is/W1yZs
>
>
>After three years of zero-Covid, nothing feels real in newly ‘free’ Shanghai
>new
>Officials locked down people in lavatories and swabbed fish. Now
>restrictions are no more but millions remain traumatised
>Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>CHINATOPIX
>Cameron Wilson, Shanghai
>Saturday January 07 2023, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times
>I’ve lived in Shanghai for 17 years, enjoying a ringside view of China’s
>rise — and countless wonderful adventures. But the last 12 months have
>left me feeling like an unwitting participant in some kind of
>hidden-camera television show. For a long time, every aspect of life in
>China was shaped by zero-Covid restrictions.
>Then, just before Christmas, the policy was suddenly and unexpectedly
>abandoned. For large numbers of people, the consequences have been
>tragic. But for many others, the whole experience has resembled a
>practical joke so elaborate that the late Jeremy Beadle would surely
>have considered it to be his finest work.
>Just a month ago, if you were deemed even to have been a close contact
>of someone who tested positive, you could be dragged off by dabai
>(health workers in white protective suits) to a grotty isolation centre
>and forced to stay there until you tested negative. Today? The official
>message is: it’s fine to turn up at work with the very same virus that
>we were told until late last year was a mortal threat.
>The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>tedium of daily testing
>The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>tedium of daily testing
>CAMERON WILSON
>Sure enough, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours have fallen like
>dominoes. Everyone has. Each day brought a new empty seat in the office,
>a new social media post of a positive Covid test. After three years of
>barely anyone catching the disease, the sudden onslaught has created an
>overwhelming sense of confusion. Many were expecting mild, if any,
>symptoms, because the government published figures every day emphasising
>that the vast majority of cases were asymptomatic. But in fact almost
>everyone I know was knocked out for days at home with a heavy flu-like
>illness, having forgotten that the official definition of asymptomatic
>just meant not requiring hospital treatment.
>It’s hard to overstate just how intrusive zero-Covid was in Shanghai,
>particularly in 2022. You had to do a PCR test every other day and show
>a negative result to enter restaurants, shops and your workplace, or use
>public transport. You name it, you had to scan a code with an app on
>your phone to do it. Forgetting to do a test on time meant abandoning
>any plans you had to leave your house that day. Your health code app
>dominated every hour of your existence. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t.
>Right now the city is starting to recover and you can freely enter all
>the bars, restaurants and shops which didn’t go bankrupt — as a great
>many did.
>But a feeling of mass discombobulation remains. Most people were fine
>with the first couple of years of zero-Covid — millions of lives were
>saved. Unfortunately, the virus mutated into something significantly
>less deadly but a lot more transmissible. And rather than face up to the
>inevitable and make an exit plan, China escalated the policy and the
>madness started.
>The Shanghai lockdown saw 26 million people unable to leave their homes
>for more than two months, subjected to mandatory testing every day, and
>forcibly taken to isolation centres if testing positive. Some residents
>were even physically sealed inside buildings. The courier delivery
>system collapsed, leaving people to rely on government food handouts to
>survive. Every day, social media brought weird, sometimes disturbing
>spectacles. Videos of people jumping from buildings. Left-behind pets
>killed by healthcare workers. Hysterical kids being separated from
>parents taken to isolation. Suffering people walking naked in the
>street. Thousands of neighbours wailing crazily in unison. Meanwhile,
>official propaganda rubbed it in everyone’s faces by blaming “foreign
>forces” for a protest that saw millions of hungry residents bang pots
>and pans at their kitchen windows each night. Today, everyone is asking
>if all of this really happened — because in the end it was all for
>absolutely nothing.
>Seeing this happen in China’s biggest and most modern city seemed
>unreal. It was a trauma, which being honest, I have not fully recovered
>from, and I don’t think most others have either.
>The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>YANG JIANZHENG/VCG/GETTY IMAGES
>Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>CAMERON WILSON
>The months following the end of the lockdown brought even more bizarre
>phenomena, as the authorities cracked down on the increasingly
>transmissible Omicron variant. No act, no matter how contradictory,
>absurd or ridiculous, was considered overzealous in the “fight against
>the virus”. Live fish had their gills swabbed by people in white suits.
>Bars, nightclubs and sports stadiums remained closed, yet the metro
>carried millions of passengers every day. Public health officials
>visited a restaurant which only sold pizza and insisted on putting up
>campaign posters saying “use separate serving chopsticks to prevent
>spreading viruses”. Regular Covid outbreaks and brutally uncompromising
>enforcement meant people suddenly found themselves locked down in
>unusual locations such as public lavatories, offices or strangers’
>homes. Schools were constantly closing and opening. At one point a video
>of an unfortunate goose being anally probed by a government inspector at
>a wet market made the rounds.
>Eventually, the pressure began to take its toll in higher circles. The
>Communist Party’s 20th national congress — widely hoped to bring the end
>of zero-Covid, didn’t deliver in that regard but brought the spectacle
>of a confused-looking former president, Hu Jintao, being led out of the
>arena. As usual, nobody really knew what was going on, but something had
>changed. In November, the sight of maskless fans partying at the World
>Cup in Qatar did not go unnoticed by the Chinese population — nor the
>authorities, who censored crowd scenes on state TV broadcasts. Before we
>knew it, zero-Covid had delivered the ultimate in unthinkable
>developments, when protesters in Shanghai called for the end of the
>policy and for Xi Jinping to step down. Weeks later, zero-Covid ended at
>the worst time possible — the start of winter — leaving no time for any
>preparation such as stockpiling medicines or finishing vaccination
>programmes.
>Nobody knows how many people have succumbed to the virus since then,
>because the country has stopped publishing daily case data. However,
>there have been reports of crematoriums and hospitals becoming
>overwhelmed, and on Wednesday the World Health Organisation said that
>China was under-representing the true impact and in particular
>underplaying the number of deaths.
>In my household, however, the most utterly peculiar three years of our
>lives ended in typically perplexing style last week. My father-in-law —
>in his late sixties and of the very demographic that zero-Covid was
>meant to protect, reacted to testing positive by sauntering out to buy
>several £5 bottles of huangjiu (yellow wine). He polished them off that
>evening and was first in our family to recover just a day later. I half
>expected him to take off his mask to reveal that Beadle was still alive.
>Cameron Wilson is a freelance journalist based in Shanghai

The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
China & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19
) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.

HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>
>> https://archive.is/W1yZs
>>
>>
>> After three years of zero-Covid, nothing feels real in newly ‘free’ Shanghai
>> new
>> Officials locked down people in lavatories and swabbed fish. Now
>> restrictions are no more but millions remain traumatised
>> Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>> Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>> CHINATOPIX
>> Cameron Wilson, Shanghai
>> Saturday January 07 2023, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times
>> I’ve lived in Shanghai for 17 years, enjoying a ringside view of China’s
>> rise — and countless wonderful adventures. But the last 12 months have
>> left me feeling like an unwitting participant in some kind of
>> hidden-camera television show. For a long time, every aspect of life in
>> China was shaped by zero-Covid restrictions.
>> Then, just before Christmas, the policy was suddenly and unexpectedly
>> abandoned. For large numbers of people, the consequences have been
>> tragic. But for many others, the whole experience has resembled a
>> practical joke so elaborate that the late Jeremy Beadle would surely
>> have considered it to be his finest work.
>> Just a month ago, if you were deemed even to have been a close contact
>> of someone who tested positive, you could be dragged off by dabai
>> (health workers in white protective suits) to a grotty isolation centre
>> and forced to stay there until you tested negative. Today? The official
>> message is: it’s fine to turn up at work with the very same virus that
>> we were told until late last year was a mortal threat.
>> The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>> tedium of daily testing
>> The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>> tedium of daily testing
>> CAMERON WILSON
>> Sure enough, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours have fallen like
>> dominoes. Everyone has. Each day brought a new empty seat in the office,
>> a new social media post of a positive Covid test. After three years of
>> barely anyone catching the disease, the sudden onslaught has created an
>> overwhelming sense of confusion. Many were expecting mild, if any,
>> symptoms, because the government published figures every day emphasising
>> that the vast majority of cases were asymptomatic. But in fact almost
>> everyone I know was knocked out for days at home with a heavy flu-like
>> illness, having forgotten that the official definition of asymptomatic
>> just meant not requiring hospital treatment.
>> It’s hard to overstate just how intrusive zero-Covid was in Shanghai,
>> particularly in 2022. You had to do a PCR test every other day and show
>> a negative result to enter restaurants, shops and your workplace, or use
>> public transport. You name it, you had to scan a code with an app on
>> your phone to do it. Forgetting to do a test on time meant abandoning
>> any plans you had to leave your house that day. Your health code app
>> dominated every hour of your existence. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t.
>> Right now the city is starting to recover and you can freely enter all
>> the bars, restaurants and shops which didn’t go bankrupt — as a great
>> many did.
>> But a feeling of mass discombobulation remains. Most people were fine
>> with the first couple of years of zero-Covid — millions of lives were
>> saved. Unfortunately, the virus mutated into something significantly
>> less deadly but a lot more transmissible. And rather than face up to the
>> inevitable and make an exit plan, China escalated the policy and the
>> madness started.
>> The Shanghai lockdown saw 26 million people unable to leave their homes
>> for more than two months, subjected to mandatory testing every day, and
>> forcibly taken to isolation centres if testing positive. Some residents
>> were even physically sealed inside buildings. The courier delivery
>> system collapsed, leaving people to rely on government food handouts to
>> survive. Every day, social media brought weird, sometimes disturbing
>> spectacles. Videos of people jumping from buildings. Left-behind pets
>> killed by healthcare workers. Hysterical kids being separated from
>> parents taken to isolation. Suffering people walking naked in the
>> street. Thousands of neighbours wailing crazily in unison. Meanwhile,
>> official propaganda rubbed it in everyone’s faces by blaming “foreign
>> forces” for a protest that saw millions of hungry residents bang pots
>> and pans at their kitchen windows each night. Today, everyone is asking
>> if all of this really happened — because in the end it was all for
>> absolutely nothing.
>> Seeing this happen in China’s biggest and most modern city seemed
>> unreal. It was a trauma, which being honest, I have not fully recovered
>> from, and I don’t think most others have either.
>> The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>> The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>> YANG JIANZHENG/VCG/GETTY IMAGES
>> Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>> Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>> 39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>> Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>> Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>> 39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>> CAMERON WILSON
>> The months following the end of the lockdown brought even more bizarre
>> phenomena, as the authorities cracked down on the increasingly
>> transmissible Omicron variant. No act, no matter how contradictory,
>> absurd or ridiculous, was considered overzealous in the “fight against
>> the virus”. Live fish had their gills swabbed by people in white suits.
>> Bars, nightclubs and sports stadiums remained closed, yet the metro
>> carried millions of passengers every day. Public health officials
>> visited a restaurant which only sold pizza and insisted on putting up
>> campaign posters saying “use separate serving chopsticks to prevent
>> spreading viruses”. Regular Covid outbreaks and brutally uncompromising
>> enforcement meant people suddenly found themselves locked down in
>> unusual locations such as public lavatories, offices or strangers’
>> homes. Schools were constantly closing and opening. At one point a video
>> of an unfortunate goose being anally probed by a government inspector at
>> a wet market made the rounds.
>> Eventually, the pressure began to take its toll in higher circles. The
>> Communist Party’s 20th national congress — widely hoped to bring the end
>> of zero-Covid, didn’t deliver in that regard but brought the spectacle
>> of a confused-looking former president, Hu Jintao, being led out of the
>> arena. As usual, nobody really knew what was going on, but something had
>> changed. In November, the sight of maskless fans partying at the World
>> Cup in Qatar did not go unnoticed by the Chinese population — nor the
>> authorities, who censored crowd scenes on state TV broadcasts. Before we
>> knew it, zero-Covid had delivered the ultimate in unthinkable
>> developments, when protesters in Shanghai called for the end of the
>> policy and for Xi Jinping to step down. Weeks later, zero-Covid ended at
>> the worst time possible — the start of winter — leaving no time for any
>> preparation such as stockpiling medicines or finishing vaccination
>> programmes.
>> Nobody knows how many people have succumbed to the virus since then,
>> because the country has stopped publishing daily case data. However,
>> there have been reports of crematoriums and hospitals becoming
>> overwhelmed, and on Wednesday the World Health Organisation said that
>> China was under-representing the true impact and in particular
>> underplaying the number of deaths.
>> In my household, however, the most utterly peculiar three years of our
>> lives ended in typically perplexing style last week. My father-in-law —
>> in his late sixties and of the very demographic that zero-Covid was
>> meant to protect, reacted to testing positive by sauntering out to buy
>> several £5 bottles of huangjiu (yellow wine). He polished them off that
>> evening and was first in our family to recover just a day later. I half
>> expected him to take off his mask to reveal that Beadle was still alive.
>> Cameron Wilson is a freelance journalist based in Shanghai
>
> The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
> China & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19
> ) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
> among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
> asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
> 15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
> doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
> best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
> mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
> Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
> slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
> http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
> vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
>
> Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
> ) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
>
> So how are you ?
>
I am wonderfully hungry!

Michael Ejercito wrote:
> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
>> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>>
>>> https://archive.is/W1yZs
>>>
>>>
>>> After three years of zero-Covid, nothing feels real in newly ‘free’ Shanghai
>>> new
>>> Officials locked down people in lavatories and swabbed fish. Now
>>> restrictions are no more but millions remain traumatised
>>> Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>>> Covid patients line the hall of a hospital in Shanghai on Tuesday
>>> CHINATOPIX
>>> Cameron Wilson, Shanghai
>>> Saturday January 07 2023, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times
>>> I’ve lived in Shanghai for 17 years, enjoying a ringside view of China’s
>>> rise — and countless wonderful adventures. But the last 12 months have
>>> left me feeling like an unwitting participant in some kind of
>>> hidden-camera television show. For a long time, every aspect of life in
>>> China was shaped by zero-Covid restrictions.
>>> Then, just before Christmas, the policy was suddenly and unexpectedly
>>> abandoned. For large numbers of people, the consequences have been
>>> tragic. But for many others, the whole experience has resembled a
>>> practical joke so elaborate that the late Jeremy Beadle would surely
>>> have considered it to be his finest work.
>>> Just a month ago, if you were deemed even to have been a close contact
>>> of someone who tested positive, you could be dragged off by dabai
>>> (health workers in white protective suits) to a grotty isolation centre
>>> and forced to stay there until you tested negative. Today? The official
>>> message is: it’s fine to turn up at work with the very same virus that
>>> we were told until late last year was a mortal threat.
>>> The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>>> tedium of daily testing
>>> The author took a photograph in this pose every day to relieve the
>>> tedium of daily testing
>>> CAMERON WILSON
>>> Sure enough, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours have fallen like
>>> dominoes. Everyone has. Each day brought a new empty seat in the office,
>>> a new social media post of a positive Covid test. After three years of
>>> barely anyone catching the disease, the sudden onslaught has created an
>>> overwhelming sense of confusion. Many were expecting mild, if any,
>>> symptoms, because the government published figures every day emphasising
>>> that the vast majority of cases were asymptomatic. But in fact almost
>>> everyone I know was knocked out for days at home with a heavy flu-like
>>> illness, having forgotten that the official definition of asymptomatic
>>> just meant not requiring hospital treatment.
>>> It’s hard to overstate just how intrusive zero-Covid was in Shanghai,
>>> particularly in 2022. You had to do a PCR test every other day and show
>>> a negative result to enter restaurants, shops and your workplace, or use
>>> public transport. You name it, you had to scan a code with an app on
>>> your phone to do it. Forgetting to do a test on time meant abandoning
>>> any plans you had to leave your house that day. Your health code app
>>> dominated every hour of your existence. And now, suddenly, it doesn’t.
>>> Right now the city is starting to recover and you can freely enter all
>>> the bars, restaurants and shops which didn’t go bankrupt — as a great
>>> many did.
>>> But a feeling of mass discombobulation remains. Most people were fine
>>> with the first couple of years of zero-Covid — millions of lives were
>>> saved. Unfortunately, the virus mutated into something significantly
>>> less deadly but a lot more transmissible. And rather than face up to the
>>> inevitable and make an exit plan, China escalated the policy and the
>>> madness started.
>>> The Shanghai lockdown saw 26 million people unable to leave their homes
>>> for more than two months, subjected to mandatory testing every day, and
>>> forcibly taken to isolation centres if testing positive. Some residents
>>> were even physically sealed inside buildings. The courier delivery
>>> system collapsed, leaving people to rely on government food handouts to
>>> survive. Every day, social media brought weird, sometimes disturbing
>>> spectacles. Videos of people jumping from buildings. Left-behind pets
>>> killed by healthcare workers. Hysterical kids being separated from
>>> parents taken to isolation. Suffering people walking naked in the
>>> street. Thousands of neighbours wailing crazily in unison. Meanwhile,
>>> official propaganda rubbed it in everyone’s faces by blaming “foreign
>>> forces” for a protest that saw millions of hungry residents bang pots
>>> and pans at their kitchen windows each night. Today, everyone is asking
>>> if all of this really happened — because in the end it was all for
>>> absolutely nothing.
>>> Seeing this happen in China’s biggest and most modern city seemed
>>> unreal. It was a trauma, which being honest, I have not fully recovered
>>> from, and I don’t think most others have either.
>>> The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>>> The waterfront at the Bund in Shanghai is disinfected last March
>>> YANG JIANZHENG/VCG/GETTY IMAGES
>>> Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>>> Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>>> 39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>>> Taken in August 2020, the first time the author’s family had left
>>> Shanghai for ten months. From left: Min Deyuan, now 66, Veronica Min,
>>> 39, Cameron Wilson,47, Mhairi Min Wilson, seven, and Zhang Jinqing, 67
>>> CAMERON WILSON
>>> The months following the end of the lockdown brought even more bizarre
>>> phenomena, as the authorities cracked down on the increasingly
>>> transmissible Omicron variant. No act, no matter how contradictory,
>>> absurd or ridiculous, was considered overzealous in the “fight against
>>> the virus”. Live fish had their gills swabbed by people in white suits.
>>> Bars, nightclubs and sports stadiums remained closed, yet the metro
>>> carried millions of passengers every day. Public health officials
>>> visited a restaurant which only sold pizza and insisted on putting up
>>> campaign posters saying “use separate serving chopsticks to prevent
>>> spreading viruses”. Regular Covid outbreaks and brutally uncompromising
>>> enforcement meant people suddenly found themselves locked down in
>>> unusual locations such as public lavatories, offices or strangers’
>>> homes. Schools were constantly closing and opening. At one point a video
>>> of an unfortunate goose being anally probed by a government inspector at
>>> a wet market made the rounds.
>>> Eventually, the pressure began to take its toll in higher circles. The
>>> Communist Party’s 20th national congress — widely hoped to bring the end
>>> of zero-Covid, didn’t deliver in that regard but brought the spectacle
>>> of a confused-looking former president, Hu Jintao, being led out of the
>>> arena. As usual, nobody really knew what was going on, but something had
>>> changed. In November, the sight of maskless fans partying at the World
>>> Cup in Qatar did not go unnoticed by the Chinese population — nor the
>>> authorities, who censored crowd scenes on state TV broadcasts. Before we
>>> knew it, zero-Covid had delivered the ultimate in unthinkable
>>> developments, when protesters in Shanghai called for the end of the
>>> policy and for Xi Jinping to step down. Weeks later, zero-Covid ended at
>>> the worst time possible — the start of winter — leaving no time for any
>>> preparation such as stockpiling medicines or finishing vaccination
>>> programmes.
>>> Nobody knows how many people have succumbed to the virus since then,
>>> because the country has stopped publishing daily case data. However,
>>> there have been reports of crematoriums and hospitals becoming
>>> overwhelmed, and on Wednesday the World Health Organisation said that
>>> China was under-representing the true impact and in particular
>>> underplaying the number of deaths.
>>> In my household, however, the most utterly peculiar three years of our
>>> lives ended in typically perplexing style last week. My father-in-law —
>>> in his late sixties and of the very demographic that zero-Covid was
>>> meant to protect, reacted to testing positive by sauntering out to buy
>>> several £5 bottles of huangjiu (yellow wine). He polished them off that
>>> evening and was first in our family to recover just a day later. I half
>>> expected him to take off his mask to reveal that Beadle was still alive.
>>> Cameron Wilson is a freelance journalist based in Shanghai
>>
>> The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
>> China & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19
>> ) finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
>> among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
>> asymptomatic) in order to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John
>> 15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
>> doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
>> best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage
>> mutations and others like the Omicron, Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota,
>> Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations combining via
>> slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like
>> http://tinyurl.com/Deltamicron that may render current COVID
>> vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no longer effective.
>>
>> Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://tinyurl.com/RapidOmicronTest
>> ) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
>>
>> So how are you ?
>
> I am wonderfully hungry!