Here we go again. As of a couple of hours ago we are back in lockdown. I have a lot of rice, half an onion and a green pepper. Tomorrow would have been shopping but now we are not allowed out to go to the shops again. Also tomorrow a workman was coming to do some important work in my apartment but now he can’t come into the community. How long will it last? They say three days. The last three days was almost a month long. This time I have enough of most of my medicine for about five weeks. And just to add to the fun in this Alice in Wonderland “freedom tomorrow but never freedom today” situation the externally controlled heating in our block has broken but no one is allowed in to fix it during this indefinite three day lock down. (Only in China is ‘indefinite three-day’ lockdown not an oxymoron.)

It seems that the whole world has become dysfunctional. Your home country, my home country, China, Russia, all of South America, etc. Ironic, but Ukraine functions better while being blown to bits than half the rest of the world!

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
It seems that the whole world has become dysfunctional.

All the bits where nobody lives seem to be doing ok.

Therein lies the solution!

Thanks for the update, Bob. We keep hearing about China's lockdowns, now we know it's true! I saw protests on TV yesterday-- unusual, eh?

Not that there is anyone reading this but I thought I'd post a view from someone actually on the ground, so to speak, to go along with what I am sure you have seen on the news. Just some simple facts will do.

My school had 75% of the students and almost all the teachers come down with Covid symptoms. Everyone has been sent home.
A friend in XiAn says that just in her class thirty six of the thirty nine students have Covid.
I have spoken to three of my friends in Baiyin, one of my friends in Yangshuo, one of my friends in Xianyang and three of my friends in XiAn. They all have Covid AND SO DO MOST MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILIES.
Official figures say that only 16 people have died in the two weeks since the Government did the the biggest medical u-turn in history going from a zero covid policy to a 100% covid policy. Nobody believes that. Independent estimates suggest that in the coming year we can expect AT LEAST a million dead.
There is literally NO TESTING anywhere except main hospitals. Self-test kits have been sold out for weeks. People are advised to only go to hospital if they ALREADY HAVE SEVERE SYMPTOMS. If you think you have it you are advised to stay at home. You are advised to stay at home WHATEVER MEDICAL CONDITION YOU HAVE because if you go to the hospital YOU WILL CATCH COVID.
Masks are sold out everywhere. The general mood is a strange mix of resignation and panic. Some people see the inevitable death toll as being a price worth paying. I expect they will go on thinking that until they are dying from it themselves.
Over the next few months three increasingly deadly waves are predicted and in January people travel for Spring Festival - there are usually tens of millions of people on the move who will all be spreading it further and faster.

As for me I am not sure if I had a very mild case of covid or just a bad cold though I think it was only a cold which means that sooner or later I will catch covid. It has now become impossible to avoid it. I did lose my sense of smell and taste for few days which I never had before with a cold so who knows maybe it was Covid.

I was due to go to XiAn on Christmas Eve for an office meal but I have told them that I won't be going. It would mean a journey of an hour each way in a shared taxi (shared with up to five strangers) plus a few hours in a crowded restaurant - obviously without masks as we would be eating.

So all in all you do not find me in the most optimistic frame of mind.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Do not despair, my friend. Even with this (these) surge(s) the worldwide mortality rate is about 1-5%, using numbers from the last month.* They are enormous from a public health perspective, but that's the result of the population of China being so large; individually it's likely to be not so bad.

(...had it twice so far, despite vaccinations and boosters and masks and handwashing and "foam in, foam out"-ing, both cases mild...)


*(see https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center dsshboard.)

Not terribly comforting when you realise that one percent of one and a half billion is fifteen million.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Not terribly comforting when you realise that one percent of one and a half billion is fifteen million.

...not very comforting if you're responsible for the entire nation and medical system, to be sure; on an individual basis however it's still unlikely that you'll have serious consequences even if you eventually contract the infection.

I'm sorry but I don't agree. I think a one in a hundred chance of dying is an unacceptable risk. If you had a one in a hundred chance of being struck by lightning you would hide in your basement whenever there was a storm. If one beer in a hundred was poisonous you would never drink another drop. One in a hundred is a massive personal risk. If there was a one in a hundred chance of a drug killing you there is literally a zero chance that the FDA would ever approve it and if they did would you be prepared to take it, whatever condition it was for? I certainly wouldn't.
On the other hand I am sure those figures are much higher than the reality.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,