Ask the Locked-down in Beijing Doper

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Over in the covidiot thread, I mentioned that as of yesterday, 21 November 2022, my wife and I are on home quarantine through this coming Friday; we’re supposed to be sprung Saturday morning provided the three tests (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) are negative. Here’s the background on why we’re doing this.

Two parents tested positive and they still sent their child to the school instead of doing what’s required by the government: everyone residing in the home stay at home and report that to the city government. To nobody’s surprise, the government has ordered both my school and a private school across the street (really about two blocks acroos the street (big empty field inbetween the schools) to close the campuses for one week (the wife of one of my school’s foreign teachers is a foreign teacher at that school). That means everyone on campus is confined to their rooms, both students in the dormitories and staff in on-campus apartments. Those residing off-campus are to be sealed into their apartments based on the decision of the health commission; some are locked in for a solid week, and others, like my wife and me, are locked in until Saturday morning.

So, what questions do you have?

2

First, I’m sorry you’re locked down. How do you manage food and other essentials?

3

Wow, so China’s still being super serious about Covid. Impressive.

Is this the same level of seriousness as it has been since 2020 or have rules waxed and waned?

4

Thanks for starting this thread. I’m really interested in the answers we will get.

Are the idiot parents going to be penalized for this?

5

Which brings forth another question: on the ongoing debate over whether the Chinese national response is too harsh or whether it’s “worth it,” what do you think, as someone actually affected by actions like these? What do your local born neighbors seem to think?

6

We got a bit of advance notice, so we immediately got what we thought we’d need immediately. The neighborhood committee allows us to receive deliveries placed at the door, and we have to request permission to open the door to fetch the stuff inside, then close the door.

It is the same level of seriousness, but not the same extreme. If someone is found violating the rules, they’ll be raked over the coals. For the foreigners, that will include immedite dismissal by their Chinese employer. Last year, a friend who works at a university in the south of China sent me the screen shots of a WeChat conversation he had with a foreigner at his university. The other foreigner decided she could travel because it was only the school, not the government, telling her not to. She got locked down in another province and, of course, was not able to return to work in time. She was canned immediately.

@Mama_Zappa is the one who suggested the thread.

The rich parents of a child at a private school in Beijing suffer consequences for their behavior? Oh, please. If anything, the school will say they took a financial hit because of it and that will have a negative impact on payroll budget. The current discussion among some teachers is that, depending on what the school’s actual policy for checking the QR codes for parents dropping children off at the school is, the security guards working the gate that day might be fired. Or the government might remove that decision from the school and simply prosecute the guards.

The locals in my apartment are tired of it, but they’re resigned to it. I guess growing up in China, one would be resigned to a lot of things involved with their government. My personal opinion is that it’s probably worth it if you consider the ultimate good is saving lives. Of course it’s tanking the economy. Right now the whole district is on high alert, and just a few minutes ago, I got a message in my apartment building group that there has been one positive result in our apartment complex.

There are still people protesting though. I only get that through the foreign news when my VPN is working. I’d see it on China’s social media if I weren’t working during the day, but by the time I’m done, the censors have done their job.

The big issue is that neither the city government nor the central government (as China refers to the national govenrment) can afford for there to be the same level of cases as seen in Wuhan in 2020 and Shanghai in 2022.

There are still foreigners living here who believe it’s all a hoax and they refuse to get vaccinated and the only reason they do the testing is because they cannot go anywhere or enter anywhere if they don’t.

7

Not to trivialise a serious situation, but can you still watch TV? Netflix etc?

Can you work from home?

8

Oh, something like what would happen in Phoenix. Got it. I sure hope you don’t test positive.

9

When the VPN is working, I can watch Netflix. Currently, though, I’m binge-watching Air Crash Investigation/Mayday which is available on bilibili.com (a Chinese video hosting site).

I’ve lost count of which go-around of online-teaching this is. Maybe it’s number 7 or number 8.

Let’s hope neither of us does. I’m hoping this will all be just a distant memory when the semester ends at the end of January. We really do need to go to South Korea for a few reasons, and I’m not thrilled at the prospect of not going.

10

How big is your apartment? As in what would happen if one of you tested positive? Could that person hide in a room with a closed door?

If not, would the person who tested positive be moved to a place where everyone is a stranger with only a positive test in common?

I am sending positive thoughts but you know how well they work.

11

The apartment is 110 square meters wth two bedrooms, two full baths, a kitchen, and a dining/living room. Not bad for the rent we pay and the location (boondocks). One of the policy changes is that an entire household can volunteer to be quarantined in a central quarantine facility if one person tests positive. Another policy change is that the quarantine facility one must go to if one tests positive is no longer paid for by the government.

If one is sent to a quarantine facility, it’s a single room unless, as mentioned, everyone (or just a couple of people) in the household volunteer to go together.

Better than a Republican-led election fraud investigation, no doubt!

12

Why would one do this? How is this advantageous over locking down at home?

13

Now that just seriously sucks.

I have to say I’m surprised at the size of your apartment. Our first place was only 1140 sf. The reason I’m surprised is that the perception here is that folks in China live in little dinky places unless they are really connected somehow.

14

I don’t think you can quarantine at home if you have tested positive. The options are that the person who has tested positive goes to a dedicated quarantine facility, or the entire household does.

15

Why not? What’s the rationale?

16

This would be to avoid separating children from their parents.

Sucks more than you’d think. If you’re in quarantine, the cost is approximately 5,000 yuan (about US$700) per month. That announcement came out with the stated reason: we’ll hit you in your pocket if you don’t follow the rules during the pandemic.

I’m paying almost US$900 a month, which means I get to pocket almost a US$100 of my housing allowance. We live in a big place on the 4th floor of a 6-floor walk-up (no elevator), in the Guanzhuang area of Chaoyang. Rents were quite reasonable because, as I said, it’s in the boondocks. They’ve been going up, though, since the city government recently moved just across the district line into Tongzhou. All of my neighbors have very nice cars, ranging from VW to Ferraris and even the higher end Chinese models such as Red Flag.

Correct. Positive result requires immediate lock-down wherever one happens to be. That can be at home, at school, at your place of employment, or even at some shopping center. One must be locked-down there until the authorities can arrange for everyone who tested positive to be transported to quarantine centers and the others in that locale to be put on home isolation.

Consider this. Here, if you see a “no parking” sign put up by the city government, there will almost always be a car parked next to it. Say you’re going to have a do at your place; you put up an obviously home-made sign that says “no parking”. That sucker’s sacred! You’ll never see anyone even touch it, let alone park next to it.

Basically, the population here follows laws and regulations they only feel like following unless they’re forced to follow the ones the government really, honestly, and truly wants them to follow. Nobody’s putting up a “I’m quarantining at home” sign on their own, so the government’s stepping in and forcing people to follow the rules. And, as I think I’ve mentioned on this site before, “corrupt does not mean incompetent”. The Chinese government is corrupt. They can do what they want very well when they want to.

And speaking of corrupt, just a little while ago, I got a message from my school’s principal reminding everyone that statistics related to the pandemic at the school are classified information. Yeah, that’s one way to get people to trust the government’s numbers. :roll_eyes:

17

At least they are being honest about it. I guess. Too bad for the innocent bystanders though.

Nice!

Not so nice.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you and the other half stays negative. Humm…that just looks kinda wrong. Good luck!

18

Technically, the bigger part of the reason is “The state can no longer afford to pay for everyone’s quarantine”. Yeah, sure.

19

/nods head/

Has the virus changed in China like it has here? My idiot husband caught the first version (sick for almost three weeks) and then caught Delta (sick for 4-5 days). He got vaxxed when he had Omicron because I finally managed to have him by the short hairs (deposit on an expensive kitten) so I’m not sure if his mild reaction was because Omicron is not horrible or because of the jab.

20

What if you did follow the rules and got sick anyway?