What's happening in Shanghai (China)?

[MoreCatsForMePlease]

On Twitter, there's a lot of alarming videos/ pictures coming from Shanghai? Are these genuine or from the previous lockdowns?

Depends on the narrative of the government, and the events unfolding as to how accurate they consider the source materials.

You could describe what alarmed you, OP.

There's some fake vids about riots.
There is a lot of real info about family separation & difficulty getting fresh food.

I read, seems genuine, that in China there's not a culture of having a lot of long-life foods in the home. Many homes won't even have much or any rice in usually. They eat out a lot or get fresh foods in daily. As a result, People literally weren't ready for a long lockdown like this, didn't have enough supplies in, and now are struggling to get food delivered. Anything to do with food shortages in China freaks people out, breaks the social contract.

Common sense would say that even without knowing what you are talking about some will be genuine some won't

Isn't that the way with the internet?

It's dire. My sister lives there. They have been taped into their flat by the government as a neighbour was in contact with a covid case. They take people away to enforced hospital if they test positive even if not ill. Some people are having trouble getting drinking water. You can't drink from the taps in most places

I was reading Twitter thread about how they can't leave door of their building, except to line up for compulsory tests. Deliveries appear outside the door at random any times, but can only be brought inside by someone in a full PPE suit at 1-2 pre-designated times/day. So all those people lining up outside to get tested -- can't pick up deliveries & bring them indoors.

It's 80degF outside and the deliveries include fresh fish & meat.
But hey, who cares about people getting sick, right?

ps: there are different conditions in different parts of Shanghai, so not as bad elsewhere one hopes.

Some Twitter wag complained (sincerely) that conditions as I described above are still not "Proper Lockdown", given the huge number of keyworkers still allowed to go out & do stuff like food deliveries, treat ppl in hospital, keep the electricity network going.

Gotta Love the Zero Covid fans.

Why are they stressing about it still? Presumably they've all been triple vaccinated like us.

No.. Only 2o percent of older population vaccinated.. Take up was low..

Take up was low, the Chinese vaccine wasn't that effective to start with and the Covid variety has changed, so that vaccinating now wouldn't help much without a reformulation.

Have they got a new variant that's vaccine resistant? Why don't they just make everyone use Pfizer?

I have family there. It's bad - hard to get food supplies.

The Chinese vaccines weren't particularly effective against the early strains, and are basically useless now. Plus uptake was low. So covid is basically running wild through a covid-naive population.

To add... my family are (by local standards) relatively wealthy. So they have a maid to do the cooking and so on.

But they have no food stocks kept in the house. Ohhhh, rice and tea, yes, but nothing else. The culture is you go shopping for fresh food daily, and then dishes are made around what looked best.

So it's not like here when many (I appreciate not all!) could weather a couple of weeks stuck at home and unable to shop.

My dh has colleagues in Shanghai (we lived in China for 12 years) and the govt is delivering supplies, but quantity is limited eg not enough rice, no choice of vegetables etc.
I think the main concern is the effectiveness of the vaccine, although not something the Chinese govt admits. My friends in China were all double jabbed before us (including young children), but many older people don’t want to be vaccinated; it’s the same situation in HK.

@ImAvingOops

Have they got a new variant that's vaccine resistant? Why don't they just make everyone use Pfizer?

Admitting that their own vaccine is not as effective would be a massive loss of face.

Yes, I think we have to assume that the actions of the Chinese government in the coming weeks are going to be rooted in the desire to save face, as well as to keep control.

To those who seem to have an insight - if vaccine uptake was low I’m interested to know why not made compulsory? Given the authoritarian government I would have thought that would have not been so hard?

I appreciate this wouldn’t make much of a difference if the vaccine wasn’t very good, but why wasn’t there a vaccine mandate? Not saying they are a good idea, but it just surprises me given their strictness with previous lockdowns and quarantine rules etc.

^ X post

There's some fake vids about riots

Lljkk are those videos in the papers of people looting food fakes?

Awful reports about very small children being separated from their parents if either tested positive.

The pop. of Shanghai is around 25m. I wonder if they just didn't have the official capacity to enforce a vaccine mandate as they wanted to.

My friend lives there. They are in total lockdown again

@UhtredsLatestPaganHussy

The pop. of Shanghai is around 25m. I wonder if they just didn't have the official capacity to enforce a vaccine mandate as they wanted to.

I think about 85% of china’s population has been vaccinated so take up, is not low. The issue is more likely the effectiveness of the vaccine. Managing massive groups of people is not the issue imo. The city where I lived was second tier (population of 8 million) and testing people two of three times in a matter of days was not unusual. I read on one of my Chinese news groups that 38000 medical staff had been sent to shanghai.

The issue is more likely the effectiveness of the vaccine

Does that mean there is a possibility that our vaccines could become ineffective in time?

Why don't they re-vaccinate everyone with an effective vaccine, really quickly and under mandate?

That's interesting, @ShanghaiDiva. 85% is relatively high, so yes, must be the vaccines themselves. They weren't using Western mRNA vaccines. I wonder if they'll approve Pfizer/Moderna etc. for use now.