I’m in Shanghai, like many, I have been in lockdown for weeks (doing okay on food). I don’t have any on-the-ground info, so I made a brief timeline of Shanghai’s current covid outbreak to keep myself sane and things in perspective [thread]: 
March 1: Shanghai announced a local infection for the first time in more than a month. The outbreak might have crept in around Feb. 20 as the city quietly tried to put out fires and put close contact or secondary contact in quarantine (a few friends of mine were in isolation).
March 2 - 17: Some areas in Shanghai started to get into lockdowns, mainly in the Minhang district and Baoshan district. Many people from there are still in lockdown, meaning some Shanghai residents have been locked for more than 40 days.
March 12: Shanghai stopped in-person classes for all students. The source of Shanghai’s outbreak also became clear: the spread started from Hua Ting hotel, a quarantine site in the Xuhui district, which uses an old central air system and hosted covid patients. (Source: Caijing)
March 17: Shanghai continues rolling lockdowns, calling it a “grid management system.” The city official explains that the system allows each neighborhood to decide whether to lockdown based on testing results. It sounds good on paper but was confusing in reality.
March 22: Sh*t gets real for Shanghai. The central government sent an investigation group to Shanghai late in the night. Many neighborhoods went into instant lockdown without giving any notice to residents. Daily cases reach 1,000, with the majority being asymptomatic.
March 28: Shanghai gets into the harshest lockdown yet. Half of the city, the Pudong district, goes into full lockdown, the other half will follow on April 1. The city said Pudong's lockdown will be lifted on April 1, which didn't happen…
...Pudong's lockdown news was announced late in the night a day prior. Many apartments lifted restrictions and let people previously in lockdowns out to get groceries for the new lockdown, defeating the purpose of the previous lockdowns.
March 29: Shanghai announces 21 new stimulus policies to prepare for the lockdown hit to the economy, including cutting taxes for small businesses and returning tax fees to some manufacturers. The city accounts for about 4% of China’s GDP, home to many high-tech factories.
April 1: The other half of the city, the Puxi area, gets into lockdowns. The authority said the lockdown would be lifted on April 5. That didn’t happen. Daily cases broke 6,000.
April 2: Vice Premier Sun Chunlan in the house. Sun directed the pandemic control effort in Wuhan as the region went into a 76-day lockdown in 2020. Her arrival usually means harsher control measures.
From late March to April 8: This is an especially tough period for Shanghai (it still is, but this period was above and beyond). A flood of hate was directed toward Shanghai as the city reports a record number of cases when many residents having trouble securing food...
…Every day on Weibo, people blamed Shanghai for spreading the virus, sound familiar? Some incidents happened during the period: A woman in SH ended her life after being cyberbullied. People accused her of tipped too little (200 yuan) to a delivery driver.
April 8: Daily cases broke 22,000. Shanghai’s cybersecurity officials vowed to clear online rumors, a sign of heightened speech control. Meanwhile, the hashtag #上海买菜# (buying groceries in Shanghai) became unsearchable on Weibo. Folks used the # asking for food help…
…Major grocery platforms has ground to a halt in Shanghai. One of the few viable options was community group buy, which works for people in relatively well-organized, large neighborhoods. But people living in places with fewer resources and connections still have food problems.
April 9: Cases continue to rise, but maybe some signs of a more flexible policy? Hu Xijin, former EIC at the Global Times, said SH's extremely rare rate of severe patients provides a “strong signal." China should find ways to allow mild and suspects to quarantine at home.
April 10: Shanghai announced a new three-tier lockdown system, giving a hint of hope of loosening the strict city-wide lockdown. The outbreak is spreading to other Chinese cities. Southern city Guangzhou stopped in-person class and is preparing to build fangcang shelter hospitals
April 12: Daily cases hitting 22,348. 97% of those cases are founded in isolated quarantine sites. Shanghai has announced lockdown ease for some areas. This might be the first time a region in China loosens lockdown before they get an outbreak entirely under control…
…Too soon to tell whether it’s another flash experiment or a new covid policy in the works. JD, Alibaba, and more e-commerce platforms are sending people to help. But getting food is still an epic daily battle for many SHers.
Some thoughts: After more than a month of chaotic rolling to partial to full lockdown in Shanghai, only one patient was found severely ill, the rest of 200,000 and more patients were mild or asymptomatic. Is this the best way to use a society’s resources?
Shanghai’s initial rolling partial lockdowns created an illusion for people in other parts of the city that things are okay, leaving many unprepared for what was coming (food shortage, extended lockdowns).
Shanghai’s outbreak is now larger than Shanghai as other Chinese region rushes into more lockdowns. Over a month, the outbreak has turned into a debate of omicron vs China’s covid zero policy. No clear winner yet. But China’s economy is likely a loser.
Thank you all for reading and sending your thoughts. Here’s another update for today, think we might be in the early stage of China experimenting with injecting some flexibility into its covid zero policy
April 13: China selected eight cities (SH, Suzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Dalian, Xiamen, Qingdao) on April 11 for a 4-week pilot to test shorter quarantine rules for lockdown areas, travelers, and close contacts. The pilot cut 2 weeks to 10 days but added tests. (Caixin)
…also, saw on WeChat, one apt complex in SH's Changning district said patients who haven't been sent to mass quarantine sites might get chances to heal at home. Send test kits to patients stuck at home for more than 5 days and clear them if they test negative 2 times in a row
…Not sure if this is just another unverified small-scale experiment in SH or a new covid policy is coming. But any signs of loosening are welcomed.
Update: the April 13 Caixin report on eight Chinese cities testing shorter quarantine rules (quoted in a previous thread) has now been deleted across the Chinese internet. A confusing and conflicting time for China indeed 😓
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
