Covid in China

Covid-19 has been plaguing the world, and affecting me for over a year now. Some parts of the world have handled it better than others. In some, you can barely go outside while in others life is basically back to normal, as long as you don’t try to leave.

In the US, before I left, the vaccine was just starting to become available to the elderly. The average person wore masks and tried to stay at least 3 feet away from each other. Granted there was a certain group that was very against masks and didn’t believe the virus was real (I’m not sure how a fact is up for debate, but they were certainly trying very had). I was definitely very paranoid about other people, especially those not properly wearing their masks, and tried to keep trips outside to a minimum.

I tried to delude myself that after 2020, quarantine would be a breeze. It wasn’t.

However, in China, things are very different. While they are fairly paranoid about people entering the country, as most of the new cases in China are from travelers, locals are very lax in their precautions.

However, when there is a case that appears outside of quarantine, everyone becomes very worried. Community spread is very rare. At the end of May, there were a few cases that spread around a port in Shenzhen. Only a few handfuls of people got sick (or so the news has said), but it was big news and around 160,000 people were tested, usually several times.

As you may remember from some of my other posts, it is very hard to get into the country (Visa, Changing Requirements, Traveling) and you then have to spend at least 2 weeks in supervised quarantine (Quarantine 1, Quarantine 2).

But once you are free to mingle with the general population, the restrictions are much fewer and much less strict. There are various machines used to check your temperature at the entrances to most buildings right next to the security guard. Sometimes there is some hand sanitizer nearby, usually not.

People are asked to wear masks inside but it is not often enforced outside of the subway, where there are a ton of safety officers around and on board the trains to encourage compliance with the metro’s rules and mask wearing.

Outside, most people do not wear masks. It is more common to see someone wearing their mask on their arm (the normal method for carrying the mask) than on their face, including the also common chin mask. And, as the temperature keeps rising (why are 28°C/80°F or higher days so common in Shenzhen?), more and more people aren’t wearing their masks outside.

I’ve stopped almost completely wearing my mask when I’m outside. I’ve discovered that the part of my face covered by the mask sweats and no one wants half a sweaty face. Also, a lot of places I walk aren’t that crowded, and I will try to put my mask on properly when in a crowd.

I will say that the masks were nice in that they cut down on the spitting. Chinese people just spit all over the sidewalks (and make horrifying hacking sounds usually, but not always, while spitting). Now, I have to dodge more and more spit in the middle of the sidewalk. It’s gross!

I doubt the people enjoyed ‘social distancing’ (China hasn’t heard of personal space, as far as I’m concerned) at the height of the local lockdowns. Now, I have never seen anyone care about or even mention social distancing or personal space here. I have been on subway trains so crowded that there wasn’t space to fall down and people were still trying to squeeze on. However, there are still some tape lines on the ground a meter or so apart, so, at one point it did exist.

The vaccine is slowly being rolled out in China and Shenzhen has just started offering appointments to locals and possibly foreigners through an app. But most people are not rushing to sign up. A coworker even questioned why you would even want to get it as we can’t leave the country (would have to quarantine on our return and we don’t get vacations long enough) and there’s no local risk of getting it.

Also, the vaccine that’s given out in China is SinoVac, or one of the other Chinese vaccines. But, we’re not really sure how effective it is (one study said about 50%, but I have seen that other studies may have had different, better, numbers) or how common the side effects are and what are they.

I’m sure I’m going to eventually get the vaccine. It will probably be when I can go with a group of other foreigners. It makes life so much easier if there are a few people around to help figure out what your supposed to do, where you’re supposed to go, and what the people there are saying.

From my coworkers who spent the whole pandemic in China, overall, they were much happier here than they would have been back in their home countries. They were basically locked in their apartments for a few months, unable to go anywhere but to get food and other necessities. But once the lockdown was over, they went back to work quickly. They did have to wear their masks at work for about a month, but that was it.

A long break. No major health risks. No one trying to defy the lockdown or quarantine. Everyone wearing a mask.

And then back to work.