Coronavirus 2019-2020 thread (no unsubstantiated rumours!)

[Michaelsinodef]

I'm in Luohu in Shenzhen. We have never been in a full scale lockdown. I've been here since the beginning of the pandemic. There have been small scale lockdowns involving several blocks of apartment complexes but never a citywide lockdown.

Regarding the comparison between Shenzhen and other cities. We have been suffering from our proximity to Hong Kong. During the peak of Hong Kong's wave, we had lots of illegal crossings from Hong Kong, making it hard for our numbers to go to zero. I live very close to the border (which is fairly long). Even now, there are guards set up in tents along the border every few hundred yards or so to deter illegal crossings. I bike regularly along the border, and it's been like this for the past few months.

I've been somewhat surprised with the situation in Shanghai. But I think most likely there were isolated incidents that were handled poorly, but by and large, most people just faced a lot of inconvenience. Shanghai has a population of 24 million. Even if you handle the situation well for 99% of the people, that 1% will represent >200K people. Compared with Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million for example, Shanghai performed infinitely better. There are cases of mismanagement everywhere, including in Singapore, SK, and Japan. People just like to attack China whenever possible.

Ah yea, I mean in the end Shanghai was able to handle it, which is something that cities outside of China would have a hard time to do.

But at the same time, I think it's clear there have been quite a few problems and just incompetence (not to mention, even at a high lvl, the Shanghai officials are at fault for letting it become like that in the first place).

As for handling the situation well, from what I can tell, in Shanghai's case it was like 50% handled well, 40% ok, and then like 9% bad and 1% very bad. Of course this was initially, as time moved on the different % became better.
And in comparison Shenzhen might be like 90% well, 9.9% good and the rest at say OK with very, and I mean very little bad.

These numbers are just kind of made up by me, but the core message is that Shanghai fucked up pretty badly, especially at the start, it improved over time, but it shouldn't have gotten that bad in the first place.

 

[ht1688]

Ah yea, I mean in the end Shanghai was able to handle it, which is something that cities outside of China would have a hard time to do.

But at the same time, I think it's clear there have been quite a few problems and just incompetence (not to mention, even at a high lvl, the Shanghai officials are at fault for letting it become like that in the first place).

As for handling the situation well, from what I can tell, in Shanghai's case it was like 50% handled well, 40% ok, and then like 9% bad and 1% very bad. Of course this was initially, as time moved on the different % became better.
And in comparison Shenzhen might be like 90% well, 9.9% good and the rest at say OK with very, and I mean very little bad.

These numbers are just kind of made up by me, but the core message is that Shanghai fucked up pretty badly, especially at the start, it improved over time, but it shouldn't have gotten that bad in the first place.

Shenzhen never shutdown, so it's not meaningful to compare these 2 cases. What Shenzhen did much better was to be more vigilant and mass tested early on. This kept our numbers low and prevented a lockdown. But we've had to go through the inconvenience of being tested every 24 hours, 48 hrs, or 72 hrs, depending on the number of cases at the time. This has been going on for almost the past 6 months. Currently we are still tested every 72 hours, even though we haven't had a case in a while.

Though Shanghai did mess some things up, I think it's unfairly put under a microscope. It is HARD to manage a city of 24 million, and like you said, any city outside China would have done much worse. What I don't understand is why is the expectation for a Chinese city so much higher?

Let me give you a concrete example of the chaos in Shenzhen that was not reported. I have a friend who works in an industrial park where a close contact of a confirmed case also worked. They shut down the park IMMEDIATELY when they found out, during the day, without notice. No one was to enter or leave the park. My friend was in the office at the time, so she got stuck there for a whole week. Couldn't go home. They would bring her food, but she couldn't shower or anything.

If this happened in Shanghai to a foreigner, it would probably mean the end of the world. In Shenzhen, to a Chinese, she just tried to make the best of it.

I've rambled on a bit, but the bottom line is problems occur everywhere. I'm not a big fan of the heavy-handedness the Chinese government can often be in its execution. But for Shanghai, graded on a curve, I think it's still done much better than how other governments would have done.

 

[KYli]

Shenzhen did impose a 7 days lockdown that included shutting down the mass transit, factories and businesses. However, Shenzhen did allow a degree of freedom and most people didn't need to confine to home restrictly like Shanghai did. In a way, Shenzhen's ability to do mass testing and mass testing for 24 hours is what differentiate its from Shanghai.

Understandably, Shanghai is under tremendous pressure as the most internationalized city in China. However, it shouldn't excuse Shanghai initial failure to implement mass testing. Moreover, Shanghai was unable to cut off transmission chain and allow the virus spreading throughout China due to its reluctant to declare that Shanghai was having an outbreak. In addition, Shanghai was also slow to ask and accept helps from other cities and provinces.

If compare with other countries, Shanghai has done remarkedly well given the circumstance and the difficulty. However, Shanghai is one of the four top tier cities in China and it should compare with other Chinese cities. Its failure comparing with other top tier or even second tier and third tier cities mean that Shanghai has performed badly.

 

[KYli]

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本土病例25例 new symptomatic cases (Inner Mongolia 内蒙古16例 and Beijing 北京5例 and Shanghai 上海4例)
本土61例 new asymptomatic cases (Inner Mongolia 内蒙古33例 and Shanghai 上海4例)

 

[Han Patriot]

Shenzhen did impose a 7 days lockdown that included shutting down the mass transit, factories and businesses. However, Shenzhen did allow a degree of freedom and most people didn't need to confine to home restrictly like Shanghai did. In a way, Shenzhen's ability to do mass testing and mass testing for 24 hours is what differentiate its from Shanghai.

Understandably, Shanghai is under tremendous pressure as the most internationalized city in China. However, it shouldn't excuse Shanghai initial failure to implement mass testing. Moreover, Shanghai was unable to cut off transmission chain and allow the virus spreading throughout China due to its reluctant to declare that Shanghai was having an outbreak. In addition, Shanghai was also slow to ask and accept helps from other cities and provinces.

If compare with other countries, Shanghai has done remarkedly well given the circumstance and the difficulty. However, Shanghai is one of the four top tier cities in China and it should compare with other Chinese cities. Its failure comparing with other top tier or even second tier and third tier cities mean that Shanghai has performed badly.

Of course compared to Indian or Western cities, Shanghai did well, the whole world couldn't contain it, ONLY China can. But me being a patriot will expect more from my government, Shanghai should compare itself to Shenzhen and Beijing, those cities did exceptionally well with limited inconvenience caused to ppl. Shanghai is the classic case of having an indifferent attitude until shit break out and then start panicking.

 

[ht1688]

Shenzhen did impose a 7 days lockdown that included shutting down the mass transit, factories and businesses. However, Shenzhen did allow a degree of freedom and most people didn't need to confine to home restrictly like Shanghai did. In a way, Shenzhen's ability to do mass testing and mass testing for 24 hours is what differentiate its from Shanghai.

Understandably, Shanghai is under tremendous pressure as the most internationalized city in China. However, it shouldn't excuse Shanghai initial failure to implement mass testing. Moreover, Shanghai was unable to cut off transmission chain and allow the virus spreading throughout China due to its reluctant to declare that Shanghai was having an outbreak. In addition, Shanghai was also slow to ask and accept helps from other cities and provinces.

If compare with other countries, Shanghai has done remarkedly well given the circumstance and the difficulty. However, Shanghai is one of the four top tier cities in China and it should compare with other Chinese cities. Its failure comparing with other top tier or even second tier and third tier cities mean that Shanghai has performed badly.

If your definition of lockdown is the shutting down of mass transit, then sure, Shenzhen has been in a "lockdown" a few times, including at the beginning of the pandemic. I would surmise for most, "lockdown" means not being able to go outside (leave your apartment complex), which I've been able to do since the start. I don't care to debate what "lockdown" means.

And, if you'd like to be critical of Shanghai, be my guest; that's your prerogative. I already gave an example of a "mess up" in Shenzhen. There are actually lots of other examples like that that are just not reported. I choose to cut Shanghai some slack, based on reporting from people like Andy Boreham and Nathan Rich, who actually live in there. Expecting military precision without any chance of a rehearsal is just unrealistic (and look at how the US military exercises non-stop to achieve said precision).

I think it's also ridiculous to compare managing a 24 million population megacity with some small city. You wouldn't compare CVN management to LCS management, so why here? Neither you nor I have been locked down in a lower tiered city, so how would either of us know if they went off without a hitch? Having lived in some of these, I really doubt they'd do any better. Day-to-day management is orders of magnitude better in Shanghai than any of these cities (yes, I've lived in Shanghai also).

 

[ht1688]

Of course compared to Indian or Western cities, Shanghai did well, the whole world couldn't contain it, ONLY China can. But me being a patriot will expect more from my government, Shanghai should compare itself to Shenzhen and Beijing, those cities did exceptionally well with limited inconvenience caused to ppl. Shanghai is the classic case of having an indifferent attitude until shit break out and then start panicking.

When I first lived in Shanghai more than 15 years ago, people were still cutting in line everywhere. Crossing the street was often challenging--I had to stick close to other people to safely cross in between cars (they weren't slowing down for pedestrians) until I got my own timing down. But I fell in love with the city almost immediately. Since then, it has progressed so much it's breathtaking. I guess it's a testament to this progress that people now expect almost perfection.

Like I said above, I think Shanghai got complacent and didn't test early on. That could have prevented a total lockdown or at least would have shortened it. Keeping 24 million people fed and happy in a lockdown is just hard.

/end of defending Shanghai. Peace.

 

[KYli]

If your definition of lockdown is the shutting down of mass transit, then sure, Shenzhen has been in a "lockdown" a few times, including at the beginning of the pandemic. I would surmise for most, "lockdown" means not being able to go outside (leave your apartment complex), which I've been able to do since the start. I don't care to debate what "lockdown" means.

And, if you'd like to be critical of Shanghai, be my guest; that's your prerogative. I already gave an example of a "mess up" in Shenzhen. There are actually lots of other examples like that that are just not reported. I choose to cut Shanghai some slack, based on reporting from people like Andy Boreham and Nathan Rich, who actually live in there. Expecting military precision without any chance of a rehearsal is just unrealistic (and look at how the US military exercises non-stop to achieve said precision).

I think it's also ridiculous to compare managing a 24 million population megacity with some small city. You wouldn't compare CVN management to LCS management, so why here? Neither you nor I have been locked down in a lower tiered city, so how would either of us know if they went off without a hitch? Having lived in some of these, I really doubt they'd do any better. Day-to-day management is orders of magnitude better in Shanghai than any of these cities (yes, I've lived in Shanghai also).

We all know there's difference between Shanghai lockdown and Shenzhen soft approach. It's just you insist lockdown means not able to leave apartment complex.

As for being critical of Shanghai, I am less critical of sensational stories of failures or deficiencies. I already make it clear that I blame Shanghai for its failure to do mass testing, failure for preventing infected people leaving Shanghai that resulted spreading the virus all over China, and failure for asking and accepting helps. These failures have nothing to do with Shanghai being a mega city.

 

[56860]

Of course compared to Indian or Western cities, Shanghai did well, the whole world couldn't contain it, ONLY China can. But me being a patriot will expect more from my government, Shanghai should compare itself to Shenzhen and Beijing, those cities did exceptionally well with limited inconvenience caused to ppl. Shanghai is the classic case of having an indifferent attitude until shit break out and then start panicking.

Yes, we shouldn't compare Shanghai to the rest of the world, we should be comparing Shanghai to China because Shanghai is a Chinese city. And by that metric it has performed quite terribly.

 

[56860]

We all know there's difference between Shanghai lockdown and Shenzhen soft approach. It's just you insist lockdown means not able to leave apartment complex.

As for being critical of Shanghai, I am less critical of sensational stories of failures or deficiencies. I already make it clear that I blame Shanghai for its failure to do mass testing, failure for preventing infected people leaving Shanghai that resulted spreading the virus all over China, and failure for asking and accepting helps. These failures have nothing to do with Shanghai being a mega city.

We should be critical of Shanghai authorities in a way that is not influenced by westoid propaganda but by the bare facts. This means criticizing Shanghai's stubborn adherence to its 'precision' approach, kowtowing to foreign investors and lax testing (relative to the rest of the country). All these failures meant the central government had to step in and lock down China's largest city for over a month.

There is still zero comparison between Shanghai and say, India, where an estimated 4 million have perished from the pandemic. Shanghai's death toll after its most recent outbreak stands ~500. China at ~5000. Yet the west would have you believe India did better.