Dear Insane Children,
Well… Shanghai is experiencing a wave of new Covid infections. You can read the local news about it here: https://www.shine.cn/news/metro/2203092893/
The result is that a ton of places are getting “locked down” – meaning residents can’t leave their homes; people have to stay put (for days) in their office buildings or schools; and everyone is encouraged to avoid crowds, unnecessary travel, etc.
In the area where Martin lives (called JingAn), there are new cases popping up all over the place. Out where I live (called Fengxian) there aren’t so many cases but there was one at the swimming school where we take Lucky – and we only missed getting caught up in that mess by a few hours (those people went swimming *after* us – thankfully).
So… (mainly for this reason, we’re going to cancel the live stream this week. It’s just not a good time for us to be traveling around the city. Best to wait for this to pass.
But wait! There’s more!
There’s another reason too! The house right next door to me… yeah, not the virus. But they are using jackhammers to knock down (concrete) walls. That house recently sold and the new owner is doing renovations. In China that starts with a week+ of jackhammering. So… it’s SUPER NOISY here at the moment.
Not an ideal setup for doing a live stream.
So, yeah, no live stream this week.
Sorry about that. But we will be back next week? I hope…
Starving?
The image above is from a friend of ours who is in lockdown somewhere in Shanghai. She sent this to my wife as an example of the food delivered to everyone in lockdown. This stuff is sent daily and for free.
I share this because I’ve seen quite a few news stories recently that suggest people in China are starving; that people in lockdowns are jumping out windows because they have no food; etc.
Absolute nonsense.
The only thing we hear of people complaining about here locally? The fact that they see their friends sharing these pictures on social media… and then complain that the meat they got sent doesn’t have the right amount of fat! Haha. Basically, people complain that their neighbor got a better tomato or something.
So, yeah, be careful when you read news about China.
The pandemic control system here has avoided a ton of deaths. And it has effectively contained the spread of the virus for all this time. And people are well taken care of within the system.
Interesting question – how much longer will they maintain this level of control? How many months (or years?) before China declares the pandemic “over” for the country?
Feel free to speculate and share pandemic stories in the comments below!
From Shanghai with(out) The Virus,
-American