Originally Posted by
STS-134
You know how to make an antigen test return a negative result, right? Don't swab your nose, then post a photo of your "negative" test. As long as they continue to lock neighbors down as a result of one person in an entire compound testing positive, they are providing a significant incentive for people to lie, bribe, or cheat their way to a negative test, even if they are infected.
That is if your district is running self-reported RAT tests (like Hong Kong is on the whole the end of this week) (at least the HKSARG isn't even bothering to try and label the test as mandatory). Harder if your district is running invigilated RAT or PCR tests though.
If my analogy on participating in these tests is akin to discharging a tax obligation (I can't remember if I've used this analogy on FT yet, I've analogised the Hong Kong Fri/Sat/Sun tests as voluntarily reporting and paying taxes), obviously there will be incentives for people to lie on their tax return.
Originally Posted by
narvik
In stark contrast: I just took RT-PCR tests here in Beijing, and I am still surprised that no one actually checks ID. Anyone could just turn up, and do a test for anyone else, it seems. Might have been a phone login at one point, but not too sure. Seems odd...
Just in case, I took two tests, one for each passport I am using for this trip.
Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
Thats actually true here as well. They only look at the code on your phone and scan it. Conceivably you could register and send the code screenshot to someone else and have them test for you. That would work in a big compound with lots of foreigners. I’m the only foreigner in my building and they all know me and my apartment number. So I wouldn’t be able to pull it off during these lockdown tests but I presumably could have had someone take my tests a few weeks ago when they were mass testing at a place further away from my building.
Originally Posted by
STS-134
Now that they've brought in people from outside the city to help, none of those people know anyone. And I would think locals might have a bigger incentive to cheat or lie; foreigners can be expelled for breaking the rules, plus aren't a lot of the foreigners there single? If they're still separating parents and children if the children test positive but the parents do not, a parent whose child has symptoms would have a pretty high motivation to, say, swab nothing and just put the drops in the antigen test kit to show a "negative" test for the kid. Of course, you can't do that if it's an in-person PCR test but you might be able to substitute another kid for the sick one. Obviously there aren't going to be any statistics on how often stuff like this happens but I'd be surprised if it's not happening.
Hang on, don't they tick off whether every resident in your district or city does the tests?
Originally Posted by
uanj
Aggravating the situation is the fact that the city government asked people not to hoard food or panic buy because there would always be plenty of supply and they could order online. The people who followed this request are the worst off.
Shows they trust their government up to this point unlike us in Hong Kong, where we gotten pretty used to doing exactly what the government has told us not to do since at least 2019 (i. don't mask up ii. don't get the vaccine and iii. don't raid the supermarket).