I have friends in China who are going back to normal...

[Bienentrinkwasser]

Swimming pools and leisure centres opening, going back to work, seeing friends etc.

Why do we think it’s going to go on for months and months, or even years, here? What’s the difference?

Hmm and yet in the news just now another area of China has announced lockdown measures due to another outbreak.

This won’t be under control anywhere for a very long time.

They acted more quickly and were more careful. It's not every part of China, either.

Obviously China is massive, that was probably a stupid statement.

Many itching to get released early which means it will be much harder to almost eradicate the virus which really is the only way you gruels get back to normal

many want to prioritise their job over the greater society good

Many will refuse to participate in the level of surveillance needed for testing and tracing

Many will refuse to isolate or come forward for testing if they have a cough in the future

No one likeing the idea of mandatory 2 week quarantine on any border crossing

Oh and China locked down a couple of months ahead of us..was it January, so 3 months not 5 weeks , when they had lower levels of the virus in society , and the release is slow and controlled

I thought a load of gyms had just shut again?

Although China is a massive country, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they were acting on a province by province basis. Even our relatively small country may consider acting county by county if they can manage it.

Their infection and death rate was low thought wasn’t it? How long has your friend been in lockdown there for?

I think we need to be very careful about the statistics coming out of China, I think they are being very economical with the real figures and impact this has had.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they suffer from a second wave in a few weeks time when everyone starts socialising again

I think they went into lockdown in Feb so it’s been about 10 weeks I think. Obviously I’m not saying we should come out of lockdown any time soon. Just think it’s interesting that it’s all doom and gloom about this going on for years.

But China has been shut since January...

HK reopened and has shut again. HK schools have been shut since Jan and are not opening any time soon.

Singapore reopened and has closed again. (I am well aware Singapore is not China!)

Movement around China is restricted anyway. You can't just willy nilly book a sleeper train and travel halfway across the country because you feel like it (if you're a Chinese national). So it's easy to restrict cross-province movements and allow more freedoms in areas barely affected, and impose hard lockdowns as they did in Wuhan.

That's very different to a small, densely populated, very interconnected country like the UK which is smaller than some provinces/ states in larger countries.

Meanwhile remember the Chinese are an authoritarian state and can do things that usually we can’t in democracies (like making doctors who raise the alarm disappear...or double the death toll overnight...).

They've not gone back to normal, they've moved to a society with even tighter constraints. We're not far behind.

I know several families in several different Chinese provinces, and in Hong Kong, and none of the children are in school.

They're tightly monitored by an intrusive app they must have on their phone to access even the most basic facilities. If it goes "red", they are confined to their home - potential for serious political misuse there! That's not any sort of "normal" I want anything to do with. 🤨

Plus the virus is still there. So...