new thread on covid-19 updates in your location

[Franklin]

please back to the topic
and less political things

I have friends and family in many places in the US and around the world
and grateful to hear other first hand accounts of how things are going in different areas..

would also be grateful to hear more first hand stuff from within china too
i lost contact with some of my friends - around the time they were cracking down on vpn- and online information
don't know if it was related to that or not...
just have to wait and see


Franklin

[bailewen]

bailewen -

could you describe a little of what daily life is like over there? are people relaxing a little? what are errands like going to the store like now?

Sure. And I'll get back to Windwalker a little later. That was a long post and I don't have the energy for it at the moment. It's already like 10:30 at night out here, but I will look over it tomorrow and do my best to offer my honest opinion.

As of about a week ago, I no longer needed to fill out paperwork to leave my housing community and about 90% of us are back at the office instead of working remotely. To enter a larger supermarket like Walmart (not a big box megastore in China, just a normal supermarket sized place)...you still need to either sign a little form with your passport number and name and get your temp taken, but for mom and pop stores, you can just buy stuff normally. You do need to wear a face mask to be allowed in anywhere and you will get SERIOUS stink eye if you head outside without one one, but the N95 masks have been virtually non-existent from the start. We just wear like, disposable masks that look like surgical masks.

About 2 weeks ago I saw the first traffic jam since before I visited LA in January for Chinese New Year. Never been so happy to see a traffic jam in my life.

Public transit is back but you need to flash a QR code on your phone to board a bus or subway. The QR code is linked to a phone app that tracks your movements (Orwellian much?) but the idea is that if you have been in contact with someone from Wuhan or a confirmed COVID patient, your QR code will change from green to yellow or red and your movements will be correspondingly limited. I think it was very buggy, poorly executed, and needlessly quarantined a lot of people based in big data analysis that, honestly, was still in the beta stage.

I have a little app from work that I have to sign into daily where I answer a questionnaire about who I have been in contact with, if I have any symptoms and where I've been. The PSB has also called me on the phone 2 or 3 times since I have been back, mainly asking if I have been outside of Xi'an, when I got back, and where I went.

That being said, it feels (very subjectively) like maybe 80% of the local shops are open again and my apartment complex has stopped asking me to either fill out a form or flash the QR code when I come or go. At work, the cafeteria was still closed, last I checked, but you could get food to go and eat at your desk. My temperature gets taken at work twice a day and every afternoon a guy comes through the office and mists the entire place with some sort of Lysol fog. The company gym was still closed, last I checked, and we no longer have face-to-face meetings, which is hardly a change since 80% of out meetings were always online anyways. I keep saying "last I checked" because I have actually been on paternity leave for a week, which, in Chinese culture, is already effectively a 1 month quarantine. So the hospital was a little weird as they were only allowing 1 person at a time in the hospital to accompany mom, and officially we were not allowed to switch people, but if I came to the hospital sort of late at night, they would let me trade places with grandma as long as I promised to hide in the maternity ward and not wander about.

Basically, most things are back to sort of normal except everyone still wears masks everywhere and there's a lot of weird regulations at work. Like in addition to what I already mentioned, there are boxes of Kleenex in all the elevators so people can take one and use it to press the buttons. Restaurants are open but still take out only. The family of that Dr Li received some sort of cash compensation and CCTV tonight announce the PSB had offered a formal apology and he is generally being regarded as a national hero.

All in all, it feels like they over reacted, but looking at what is happening in the US right now, much better than the opposite.

So this is why I find it insane that western media keeps acting so surprised. From inside China, this was all on the news, daily, all day, every day. The same numbers you are seeing on the western media have been on Chinese media. The mayor of Wuhan was excoriated by the local media just as bad as by western media. The doctor, after the initial attack from the PSB, within about a month, was reframed as a tragic hero. Public parks are open again. Life is sort of normal'ish. It's very weird, but throughout the entire thing, there has been no hording. In the time since I returned from the US right at the end of Chinese new year, I have had no trouble buying any basic groceries, just had to wait in line to get my temp taking and to fill out a form before entering a supermarket. Now, I don't even have to do that.

The USA response, in contrast, has been humiliating.

[Michael]

Here are a couple of videos from a Japanese film maker who lives in Nanjing. They show the strict measures used now to prevent the spread of the virus after people have been allowed out of two months' lockdown in their homes. During the lockdown that included the Chinese Lunar New Year, where people were already at home for two weeks of vacation, each family/domecile had a pass for one person a day to leave the house for essential activities, like buying food.

There is a technological component to what the Chinese are doing now that includes cashless payment that has been the norm in Chinese cities for years, and is provided by only two companies: Tencent and Alibaba. The kind of arrangement that allows such technological "enforcement" or implementation of social policy is probably unlikely in any other large country at this time, but we're all moving in the direction of cashless. It's been happening in China for over 10 years.

These films show a little bit of the lockdown period, but are mostly footage since the lockdown ended. Each vid is about 12 minutes.


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfsdJGj3-jM


[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehCnbW4FAhg

EDIT: cross posting right when Bailewen added his description that is basically a summary of these videos.

[bailewen]

Here are a couple of videos from a Japanese film maker who lives in Nanjing. They show the strict measures used now to prevent the spread of the virus after people have been allowed out of two months' lockdown in their homes. During the lockdown that included the Chinese Lunar New Year, where people were already at home for two weeks of vacation, each family/domecile had a pass for one person a day to leave the house for essential activities, like buying food.

This actually gets to one of the largest misconceptions about Chinese autocracy. It's run less like a kingdom and more like a big corporation. The central government issues various goals and the local governments have tremendous freedom regarding how to accomplish those goals. So, for example, force abortions were never national policy, but the keeping population growth under control might have determined if you were promoted through the party structure, so, as the rule of law is pretty weak in China, some insane measures were often taken at the local level.

So I already read plenty of stories of the one person per day stuff, but even within just Xi'an, there were massive differences between how people were quarantined in the High Tech sector vs downtown, where I live. Those decisions of who could leave their homes and how often, were made at the neighborhood level, sometimes just made by the housing complex management themselves. Personally, as long as I was willing to sing in and out and get my temperature taken, I could leave as often as I liked. If just wanted to run across the street to the minimart, sometimes I wouldn't even have to sign out. But just a few kilometers across town, in a different district, things were just as you described. It was very weird.

edit: When I said I read those crazy stories of one person per day, I mean in the local Chinese social media. I didn't have to jump the great firewall to read those.

[Franklin]

I keep saying "last I checked" because I have actually been on paternity leave for a week, which, in Chinese culture, is already effectively a 1 month quarantine. So the hospital was a little weird as they were only allowing 1 person at a time in the hospital to accompany mom, and officially we were not allowed to switch people, but if I came to the hospital sort of late at night, they would let me trade places with grandma as long as I promised to hide in the maternity ward and not wander about.

Congratulations Man!!

[Michael]

As far as I know, schools in China are still closed, children are learning online, as described in one of those vids, but some schools in Qinghai and Guizhou have actually re-opened.

Friends in Guangzhou tell me schools (K-12 and colleges) are scheduled to re-open in the next few weeks and have not been shut down for the entire semester as has been done in much of the USA.

[Michael]

I keep saying "last I checked" because I have actually been on paternity leave for a week, which, in Chinese culture, is already effectively a 1 month quarantine. So the hospital was a little weird as they were only allowing 1 person at a time in the hospital to accompany mom, and officially we were not allowed to switch people, but if I came to the hospital sort of late at night, they would let me trade places with grandma as long as I promised to hide in the maternity ward and not wander about.

Congratulations Man!!

Wow! What wonderful news.

[windwalker]

I keep saying "last I checked" because I have actually been on paternity leave for a week, which, in Chinese culture, is already effectively a 1 month quarantine. So the hospital was a little weird as they were only allowing 1 person at a time in the hospital to accompany mom, and officially we were not allowed to switch people, but if I came to the hospital sort of late at night, they would let me trade places with grandma as long as I promised to hide in the maternity ward and not wander about.

Congratulations Man!!

Wow! What wonderful news.

Yes very cool
Wish you and your family lots of luck,
things will get better

[bailewen]

Franklin,

Thanks man. When the national holiday was extended to Feb 3, my wife, still in China at the time, suggested I change my flight and take a couple more days in LA with family. Just by blind luck, I decided not to, and shortly after I arrived back in Xi'an, flights from the US were either cancelled or new arrivals were put in hotel quarantine for 2 weeks. If I had extended my trip for those two days, I would have missed the birth of my son. So fucking goddamn lucky.

Michael,

Yes. Pretty much. That's another bullet I dodged with work. We have been working on distance learning solutions for the past couple years and one of the main selling points of the 5G rollout that we have been pushing is how it will make provide distance learning access to city teachers for rural residents. So although a bunch of conferences were cancelled, work got busier on projects related to telecommuting products. I work mostly on cloud stuff and various mobile office products these days.

[Franklin]

was just speaking about the Chinese side of things
not US vs China blame game as to who waited longer

This may just be my personality. I get insanely dismissive of certain types of hypocrisy.

If the US is basically actively promoting the virus, I mean being INSANELY irresponsible, refusing test kits, encouraging people to keep going to bars (thanks Nunes), just being generally anti science, then a giant cup of STFU is well deserved. Right now, based on current US response, we have absolutely ZERO authority on this issue. Maybe Israel could point fingers, but the US response has been truly irresponsible. We are pointing fingers and trying to shift blame instead of taking action. Over all, the Chinese response has been quite admirable. A cover up that lasted a few weeks, when nobody had any idea how serious this was, is pretty minor. When it came to the US, that excuse was gone. Also, more importantly, I would like to think we should be held to a higher standard. Extremely sadly, this event has created a really strong argument for authoritarian rule, and that may be the second most tragic part of the entire pandemic.

i can hear you man
i am not defending the US response
i find it baffling
(my point was i think the term Chinese Virus is a result of escalating international tension)



what boils my blood currently
it what taiwan has had to put up with through this thing
like:

increased military exercises around the island -- reason given from china state media- is to quell the rebellious inclinations of the territory - which might use this as an excuse to declare independence
and the general millitary based rhetoric coming from china during this outbreak- directed towards taiwan

and also the disinformation campaigns that seem to have the goal to disrupt social order and weaken our ability to effectively fight the virus-
which when investigated are linked back to chinese ip addresses

i honestly find this the most repugnant - and is inexcusable
not only does our CDC have to fight the virus - but they also have to spend time and resources to fight disinformation campaigns...

for example:

from literally fake news - where they will take a screen capture of our tv news - and then change it and the headline - but they use simplified characters- and post to social media

there was one - that tried to get everyone to flood the hospitals - because it said they were giving away free facemasks- this one they forged official taiwan gov documents - tried to make it look real and posted online

the most recent one was targeting the online message app LINE - to groups of elderly people - trying to get they to put a run on the supermarkets- saying food was running out you better stock up with a years worth of food...

the funniest and the saddest one i saw was someone posted online a picture of tank man from 1980's in china -- and captioned it -- my cousin's friend is risking their life to get this news out- the taiwan military is on the street in XX (central city in taiwan)


the world should be talking about this
cause not only is this vile--
but it is targeted - and has a goal to cause harm

if there are international tribunals for war crimes
there must be something for this sort of thing

i can't think of something off the top of my head - that i would find lower -then during an international health crisis/epidemic
to have one country running disinformation campaign to target another country's ability to effectively fight the outbreak and to cause social unrest...

i mean it is on the level of a lot of other despicable things that most people would not condone...

Franklin

[windwalker]

I saw "so called" because it is a misnomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic

the virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1, which resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine, and human flu viruses further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus,[8] leading to the term "swine flu"

Pigs were involved, but were not central. The name just stuck. It was the same family of flu as the 1918 flue. It was an H1N1 virus.

Maybe is the net.

A name is the name for whatever reason it’s used.
Sometime after 2015 naming conventions that were used in the past were being changed based on
reasoning for the time.

Prior to that the names used very recently like Ebola.
No one seem to have a problem with that.

If one used the scientific name for Ebola probably no one would know what they’re talking about
outside of those who work in the field

[Franklin]

Franklin,

Thanks man. When the national holiday was extended to Feb 3, my wife, still in China at the time, suggested I change my flight and take a couple more days in LA with family. Just by blind luck, I decided not to, and shortly after I arrived back in Xi'an, flights from the US were either cancelled or new arrivals were put in hotel quarantine for 2 weeks. If I had extended my trip for those two days, I would have missed the birth of my son. So fucking goddamn lucky.

Michael,

Yes. Pretty much. That's another bullet I dodged with work. We have been working on distance learning solutions for the past couple years and one of the main selling points of the 5G rollout that we have been pushing is how it will make provide distance learning access to city teachers for rural residents. So although a bunch of conferences were cancelled, work got busier on projects related to telecommuting products. I work mostly on cloud stuff and various mobile office products these days.

so cool man!!

if this is your first one
the only advice I can give you is- get some sleep
trust me...

Franklin

[bailewen]

Well one thing about the Chinese 坐月子 thing is that we have three people in the house for 1 baby.

So far, I have only had to play a supporting role in the diaper changes. Even so...so much poop.

I know I am official dad now that I have seen:

1. A baby poop during a diaper change.
2. A baby pee, roughly 5 seconds after mom decided to let him go diaperless for a few minutes until "he dries off down there".

lol

so much poop...never though I'd say this but...thank god for inlaws

[bailewen]

A name is the name for whatever reason it’s used.
Sometime after 2015 naming conventions that were used in the past were being changed based on
reasoning for the time.

Prior to that the names used very recently like Ebola.
No one seem to have a problem with that.

If one used the scientific name for Ebola probably no one would know what they’re talking about
outside of those who work in the field

Yeah, and I just added a 'so called'. I do understand the name. It's just poorly named it all. Nothing political. Just cuz I'm jewish, that doensn't mean I have an issue with naming a disease after pigs.

"Corona" is not the scientific name either, fwiw. It's not even the name of the disease. It's an entire class of diseases, but it's not misleading the way I feel "swine flu" is.

And for Ebola, I actually have no idea why it's called that or what else to call it. If there's a more appropriate name, tell me and I'll switch.

But COVID 19 is the official name and "corona virus" was in common use before anyone started calling it the "Wuhan Virus" or "The Chinese flu". The former two are what pretty much everyone was calling it before it got political. "Coronoa" is not the PC version. It's the original version. Then later, they changed the name to "COVID19". Calling is "Wuhan" or "Chinese" is just so much jingoistic, low class nonsense.

[Franklin]

Well one thing about the Chinese 坐月子 thing is that we have three people in the house for 1 baby.

So far, I have only had to play a supporting role in the diaper changes. Even so...so much poop.

I know I am official dad now that I have seen:

1. A baby poop during a diaper change.
2. A baby pee, roughly 5 seconds after mom decided to let him go diaperless for a few minutes until "he dries off down there".

lol

so much poop...never though I'd say this but...thank god for inlaws

glad to hear you have some supportive inlaws

mine can be best described - as the opposite
if there is no problem
they seem to create one - but one is not enough.. lol
they will go the distance and create more then one