Thread by @StephenMcDonell

In #Beijing, the queues to get a PCR test are back to being very long and slow tonight. Daily test results are still needed to enter public buildings but the authorities have again suddenly closed a whole lot of testing stations, others only open for a few hours in the morning.

Which brings us to this week’s Friday beverage O’Clock track, dedicated to everyone in #China still enduring #ZeroCovid restrictions. Trouble in My Brain… crank it up and don’t go insane!

I’ve been queueing for 40 minutes already. This station closes in 20 minutes. Lots of people behind me are going to be very angry after they’ve queued for so long in the winter & can’t even get a test. A little kid is riding his bike up and down the line saying “not enough time”.

And sure enough people are angry. Part of the problem is that testing stations have moved into housing compounds and not enough in the street + most only open for a few hours. #China #ZeroCovid

The workers at this testing site have stayed open a bit longer now to try to get more tests done but new people keep joining the queue. Every time a bloke comes out to tell people to stop joining the queue a big argument breaks out and he stops trying.

Now closed. Lights off. People outside trying to argue their way towards a test but it’s not going to happen. #China #ZeroCovid

They’ve announced that #Beijing public transport won’t require a PCR test result from Monday. It seems the government is looking for ways to ever so slightly ease the #ZeroCovid restrictions in place following recent protests in cities across #China.

The rhetoric from #China’s government officials has also changed in recent days with public pronouncements that new #COVID19 variants are not as serious. It’s a shift from previous lines re #Covid hell in other countries only here safe. Is it groundwork for eventual opening?

However one reading of the “easing” of some #ZeroCovid measures in #China isn’t that the government is looking to open up soon but looking for ways to maintain #ZeroCovid (at least for now) at a time when people have been protesting, calling for it to end, across the country,

Another possibility: with all the test booth closing, could it seriously be that officials want less test results to make it appear that there are less cases? Then the govt could just slowly ease restrictions in #Beijing while gradually allowing #COVID19 to spread in the city?

Fewer testing stations (+ those open, only operating for a few hours), will have to reduce the number of positive cases. Will other buildings follow the public transport system and stop requiring PCR test results in order to enter?

If the government in #China has a #ZeroCovid exit strategy, by keeping it secret, it has exacerbated the enormous uncertainty and unease in the country. #COVID19

Could this be a #ZeroCovid turning point (at least the beginning)? Take #Beijing: #COVID19 infections haven’t come down yet there is easing. It wouldn’t have happened before. Perhaps the protests have worked by shocking the government into the reality of public frustrations here?

#Beijing #Covid_19 infections have not come down yet there is this type of easing… #ZeroCovid turning point?

https://twitter.com/JDMayger/status/1598981634375573505

BTW the shopping centre example above isn’t an official policy change but an implementation matter. However that also is significant.

#Guangzhou officials appeared at a press conference without masks. This has gone viral on social media here. #China #ZeroCovid

#Guangzhou officials actually took their masks off at the press conference. This is quite symbolic! #China #ZeroCovid #Covid_19

This is pretty funny, in relation to the lack of testing stations over recent days (see above). #Beijing’s Chaoyang government has now apologised for the sudden lack of testing stations and today reopened some to ease the load… #China #ZeroCovid

https://twitter.com/manyapan/status/1599302342934863872