Hello friends,
Today marks:
Entirety of Shanghai lockdown day #13
My community lockdown day #26
Despite being on lockdown for almost two weeks, with no movement allowed outside of households, the # of Covid cases continue to rise. Today, there was a record high number of 24,000 new cases.
How are people in isolated quarantine still continuing to test positive? The public have arrived at the ironic conclusion that transmission of the virus is due to the near daily covid testing.
I have done 14 covid tests so far since lockdown, and there are two types: take-home self tests, or public community testing.
speculation #1: Take home test kits are unknowingly spreading covid as volunteers pass them household to household
speculation #2: Crowded testing sites as entire communities are asked to line up, sometimes for hours to get tested (my community was doing this every two days)
speculation #3: We are getting tested… UNTIL they find a positive case (🐑🐑🐑)… this process leads to more positive cases 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
FYI 🐑🐑🐑🐑 the sheep (yang) which is homonym for positive (yang) has become the de facto symbol of testing positive.
Irony on top of irony….we are asked to keep testing UNTIL there is a positive case in the compound. Which leads to creating positive cases. Because it is mix-testing, sometimes in groups of ten or twenty, if there happens to be a positive case, the crowded testing can lead to infecting the whole group.
It happened to my friend, who tested negative for many days until there was a positive result in her group of ten. Then, her group kept getting tested together, again and again, until the positive case ended up infecting her as well.
speculation #4: High COVID cases in largest area Pudong linked to short notice before lockdown
Shanghai is split in half by a river: East and West. Pudong (East of Huangpu River) only had 4hrs of notice before going into lockdown, while Puxi (west of Huangpu River) had 4 days.
Ironically, ironically, because of the 4 hours of notice — people all rushed to the grocery store to hoard food. The groceries were packed, opening past midnight. Which of course led to a mass spreading of COVID.
Shanghai now split into 3 zones:
My community was finally declared a precaution zone today, which theoretically means we are allowed to wander outside, though there are no shops open. Absurdly, streets that happen to cross over districts are fenced off so you cannot cross onto the other side. And yet, my community comes with a unique Chinese linguistic legal twist: “precaution zones” within my district will be treated the same as lockdown zones….
People are desperate, many without fresh food or water.
When some began shouting protests out their windows, demanding supplies in one Shanghai neighborhood, according to the Washington Post, a drone flew by and warned them to stop, and to please “control the soul’s desire for freedom.”
ECONOMIC DISASTER
Not to mention the disastrous effect on the entire Chinese economy—Shanghai being the commercial capital of the country:
The Chinese national income will fall 4% with one-month lockdown in Shanghai (Financial Times), and the country’s quarterly GDP could be set back by 10% (Everbrite security)— raising questions over whether China can hit its lowest annual gross domestic product (GDP) target since 1991.
At the same time, commodity prices have skyrocketed, especially food. For example, cucumbers that used to cost 5 RMB/kg (0.79USD), now cost 40 RMB/kg (6.28USD). 100 yuan (~$16) can only buy you this much vegetables:
Now, we have inevitably entered the economic phase from lacking to thriving barter economy/ black market trade.
The most sought-after commodity? Coca-cola.
Coca-cola is “hard” currency.
But note: only Coca-cola, not Pepsi.
Anger at food delivery platform JD “failure”
JD was known as the fastest and most popular online shopping delivery service in China. During Shanghai lockdown, when all delivery services failed, JD stepped in and said it was collaborating with the government to ensure their storages re-open. They said unlike their competitors, they have their own logistics system.
On 4/9, JD live-streamed to show their products available for purchase and spread this info far and wide online to a desperate Shanghai. millions of users ordered food through the app, which promised a delivery in 1-2 days. Many ate their remaining rations thinking more food was coming, including my friends, who put off trying to order from other platforms.
However, everyday JD updated their delivery times. Everyday, it delayed the shipping date, until finally, now it just says food will be delivered 4/22. (JD also had massive layoffs recently, which they called "graduation" instead of layoffs)
However, JD's delivery workers are suffering. They are overworking all hours of the day, to get delayed packages out. They are eating and sleeping in warehouses, in impoverished conditions.
Many are speculating JD had no resources to actually ensure delivery at this time, and yet opened ordered to maintain its cash flow.
Also, apparently delivery workers who are able to take on private orders are able to make much more money than working for JD— as delivery workers hold the much sought after “travel pass.”
A visit from the party committee secretary
Party committee secretary of Shanghai Li Qiang visited residential blocks under lockdown with his entourage.
Prior to his visit, the community he was supposed to visit “rehearsed". A woman was supposed to go get a food package, another volunteer delivers food. All life in the community has to appear normal.
However, during his visit, Li Qiang asked to see the community across the street instead, which did not rehearse for his visit. Many residents flooded the gates and shouted profanities, saying please see OUR REAL situation.
Li Qiang quietly accepted her opinions. The next day, that block got a much better rations of fresh food.
Also, prior to Li Qiang's visit to the residential blocks, the residential committees asked volunteers to seal household doors.
Emergency notice below on the day of Li Qiang’s visit: All Xu Hui residents will stay indoors and quiet all of 4/11.
However, community volunteers refused to put seals on the doors. They said “we will no longer volunteer if we have to seal doors, because we would be ashamed.”
In the end, doors were not sealed.
A morale boosting-concert, vehemently protested
Shanghai government built a physical stage by the bund, to livestream a morale boosting concert called “Collective hearts, Protecting Shanghai,” including many popular celebrities.
When news of the virtually-streamed concert was announced last night, Netizens protested vehemently.
Jokes abound about the performance content:
Intro: Party committee secretary Li Qiang kow-towing to the public
performance #1 : District leaders slapping each other
performance #2: Bao Shan leader (rumors are: he corrupted and sold their food rations to other districts) singing, “generosity of love”….
Today, it was announced the concert has been delayed…
Which resulted in more internet jokes:
Personally, I am shocked to see such critiques cloaked in blunt dark humor thriving in broad daylight. Internet jokes are usually extremely cloaked. And immediately censored. No one had dared, in recent memory, to post such raw critique.
This lockdown has unleashed a rare, collective anger. Going into lockdown, most people around me trusted the government to take care of them. But after such disastrous handling of the situation— with STILL NO ENDING IN SIGHT—even the most adamant fans of Xi (in my immediate circle) has turned against the state, and to the self-organized community around us.
Rather than being afraid of COVID these days, people are scared of being taken to the temporary hospitals, where conditions are disastrous.
It is raining today, and the makeshift shelters are leaking. (private showers, they joked):
Some makeshift hospitals are so hurriedly made, its occupants are sleeping in boxes.
While some Fang Cang (temporary) hospitals have poor living conditions, other stadium - turned hospitals appear to enjoy more freedom. A video circulating on Wechat shows occupants playing badminton and jogging.
Which sparked the question: Who are the actual ones locked in? Us at home, or the positive cases in government quarantine? What about the Shanghai college students who haven’t showered since their schools locked down 3 weeks ago? Or the delivery workers living out of warehouses?
In lieu of the morale boosting concert that never happened, Party committee secretary Li Qiang also made his way to the Fang Cang hospitals, where they rehearsed songs with little red flags prior to his visit.
Reality continues to get more absurd everyday. So much more to share with you. See you tomorrow!
Love from Shanghai,
JinJin
P.S. I have enough food, don’t worry!
Disclaimer: Since official media is still reporting all is in order in Shanghai, the stories I am collecting here are anecdotal, or from my friend circles, or those shared on Wechat and Weibo— which is the main way people access “real” news. People spread them quickly before they are inevitably censored. I will try my best to verify and select trustworthy stories, but they are not all fact checked.