I don’t understand why China doesn’t just vaccinate everybody, citizens and visitors.
Around the world, over a billion doses of vaccine have been given , and life has returned to normal.
Why can’t China vaccinate all its residents?
China is a totalitarian state with absolute authority–I’ve seen the pics of the entrance doors on buildings being welded shut to lock all the residents inside.
So the guards have some way to tell (a QR code) and should have known that the parents had Covid?
The virus here has all the Greek letter variants as elsewhere. I’ve an acquaintence, one of the aforementioned foreigner COVID truthers, who’s refusing to get vaccinated. He’s coming up on the end of his contract and he’s offended that so many places are refusing to hire him without proof of vaccination.
See above regarding innocent bystanders.
Besides the medical reasons for someone not getting the vaccine, there is still the issue of getting enough doses out to everyone everywhere. China is an authoritarian state, not totalitarian. Of course there’s also the issue of who’s going to pay for it. For a fun (as in disappointing) exercise, look up “east-west divide in China”.
The welding of everyone in is not workable everywhere, not even in China. For the city government here in Beijing to do that would not be accepted by the population without some proof that the person welded in was skirting the home isolation somehow (say, a 1st floor resident going out the living room window and getting caught on return).
As I said, it’s not a totalitarian society, and the goverment is certainly not communist either.
Yes. The child’s “Beijing Health Kit” (COVID-19 monitoring app) is on the parents’ phone. The parent, apparently, is supposed to show both the parent’s code and the child’s code.
I just noticed that I left something out regarding the quarantine facility costs. That cost is per person, not per family or even per room.
Are you not allowed to quarantine at home if you test positive?
If going to a quarantine facility is mandatory - and you have to pay for it yourself - that’s pretty punitive!
I’m a little surprised that the government isn’t going after the parents who violated the law by not self-quarantining.
In reality, it’s up to your neighborhood committee’s pandemic response team to decide, but of course now that it’s gotten serious–it’s not just the two schools I’ve mentioned–it’s up to the Chaoyang district government. If they feel that they can support you at home, they might approve it, but for positive cases, they’ll go the hospital route.
That’s pretty much the idea. Hey, on the bright side, China just recently approved a law to allow bankruptcy, so maybe people won’t have to starve to death after they get out of central facilities.
In theory, they are. A big thing in law here is “harmony”. If a damaged entity, say a school, says they suffered a certain amount of financial harm, the accused can offer that amount to make amends. That means the case is dropped. And then everyone’s happy. Well, except for the next time, the morons do something moronic.
I think the Chinese response seems perfectly in line with the actions of a totalitarian regime.
Covid is going to be with us forever, the approach China is using is extreme and is one that has long since been abandoned by the rest of the world.
I make the same point that I did about New Zealand and other countries that held on to strict approaches for a long time. It ultimately is not sustainable in countries with populations used to free movement and action. If a country wishes to return to normality, if it wishes to return to normal relations with the rest of the world there has to be a willingness to allow some level of disease and death without resorting to draconian measures. That is the price to pay.
In China’s case of course that is a big “if”. To the OP, do you think there is any indication that China wants to move in that direction? either by the people in charge of enforcing the policy or the population themselves getting restless.
How long does someone have to quarantine in a facility after testing positive?
And, do you feel that China’s reporting of cases to the world is accurate? I confess that early on, when other countries’ cases were beginning to soar, and China was basically reporting nothing, that there was no way they were telling the truth.
If someone’s put in a quarantine facility or even home isolation, one is stuck in that status until a negative result on the mandatory testing.
Do I think China’s reporting is accurate? Are you familiar with the expression, “China has socialism with Chinese characteristics”? I’m fond of adding “with Chinese characteristics” to a lot of things here. For example, I’m working at a school so I say, “What we have here is education with Chinese characteristics”. That’s what China’s reporting is: “Reporting with Chinese characteristics”. The government is probably being honest enough, because there are just too many ways right now for people to spread the information immediately. Yeah, it can and likely is scrubbed from what I call the world’s largest intranet, but that’s another issue. What the real issue on case numbers is, IMHO, that the Chinese government is intentionally using a different standard (only symptomatic cases) to report how well they’re doing with controlling the pandemic here. Yeah, they’re reporting the symptomatic cases, but they’re also obviously aware that asymptomatic cases are a concern, as you can tell by the fact they’re isolating people without symptoms.
How are you and the Ms. doing today? Still negative I hope?
What happens to pets if their family is hauled off to be quarantined?
We’re going to be tested sometime today and the next test is sometime Friday. So far, so good.
So all you are doing now is waiting? That’s pretty maddening when it comes to a pizza, waiting to learn if you will be locked up for a couple of weeks must be so much worse.
Are you at least able to open your windows for fresh air, or is that frowned on because you could spread the virus to passersby?
Actually, the staff member from the neighborhood committee just delivered two COVID-19 antigen home testing kits. We took the tests with negative results, then sent him a picture to the relevant WeChat account. Once that’s processed, the system will automatically change our Beijing Health Kit from home observation to no abnormal conditions. Then we can be sprung immediately! Right now, we’re waiting on the system processing.
Congratulations!
Well, we’re still waiting. The neighborhood committee staff member said, “This afternoon”. That’s a lot of leeway.
And we’re sprung! The first order of business, I kid you not, was to go stand in line at the community testing station to get the mandatory COVID-19 antigen test.
@JaneDoe42 Sorry I didn’t answer more quickly. Yes, we could open our windows, even if we were on the first floor.
In theory, the neighborhood committee staff will carry out the wishes of the pet owner who would arrange to have someone take care of the animal. Right now, with everone being quarantined at home until new testing, the pets are okay because their families are with them. There have been stories that In the past in some cities, I don’t know if this occurred in Beijing, pandemic control staff simply killed the animal or, IIRC, released the animal into “the wild” (i.e. outside the home).
Thanks for both of your replies. I am glad you havebeen released. Sorry about the icky post, I am out of town and using a teeny, tiny screen.
This story on the BBC today:
Videos shared on social media in China have appeared to show fresh protests against Covid restrictions, after an apartment block fire killed 10 people.
People in Urumqi are seen confronting officials, breaking down a barrier and shouting “end the Covid lockdown”.
Infections have hit new highs in China in spite of a tough zero-Covid policy.
Authorities in Urumqi have now promised to phase out restrictions - though deny that these stopped people escaping Thursday’s fire.
Restrictions have been in place in the city - capital of the western Xinjiang region - since early August.
The BBC was told by one resident in the aftermath of the incident that people living in the fire-hit compound had been largely prevented from leaving their homes.
That has been disputed by Chinese state media. However, Urumqi authorities did issue an unusual apology late on Friday - vowing to punish anyone who had deserted their duty.