Good Luck tomorrow. Keep us posted.

Well if the Emperor cannot command back the tide he can confiscate everyones� tide gauges and phones.

If they're too stupid or stubborn to learn from other people's experiences with the same thing, someone should make sure that all of their nuclear power plants are shut down. Immediately. It's not like Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, etc., have all stopped trying to get to COVID zero for no reason.

They should be trying to get as much Pfizer and Moderna as possible and giving the highest priority to everyone over 80, then everyone over 70, etc.

I wonder how many people have been infected and tested positive at home, and just haven't reported it. My friend says that if someone in a housing compound tests positive, then everyone else in that compound gets locked in for 14 days from the date of the positive test. So now they have not only stigmatized getting infected, but they've also created a significant disincentive for reporting cases. And due to limitations in testing capability, they've apparently started asking people to test at home. So if I had to bet money on it, I'd bet that there are a ton of people who know they tested positive but are deliberately not reporting their status, and when things finally do open up, these cases are going to kickstart the spread again.

It is impossible to avoid the PCR test. Everyone in the whole city was made to take a PCR test yesterday. Thanks to the system of neighborhood committee, basically the most local arm of the CCP, they will know exactly who hasn�t taken the test and come get you and force you to take it. Nobody is able to hide in their apartment to avoid the test. Also every antigen test I�ve had so far has been given to me by the committee and it is expected that everyone in the building immediately post a picture of their results in the wechat group for your building. There is nowhere to hide here.

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.

They should have done so in January, when there was still some time left.

Zero covid did work excellent while there was no vaccination, and people were left to die on the streets in India, or dead bodies kept in freezer trucks in the US.

If you run a system successfully for (almost) two years, you're bound to have issues on switching. Singapore als panicked when Omicron was fresh, but were able to adapt quickly. This was December/January, and this is where China seemingly failed to adapt their strategy.

We'll see how it goes, but it looks quite dark at the moment indeed. February/March should have been used for preparation of "living with covid", not trying to battle it anymore.

They won't officially tolerate a two-tier healthcare system either:

Glad I could be of help with the information. I’m extremely glad I left when I did. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be locked up in my apartment in Xujiahui during this period.

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.

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.

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.

seems fine to me; ease of exiting China is a reasonably important factor in determining when, where, and whether to enter China

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.

One thing can explain everything: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/commitment-bias
They still haven't figured out that they are in a hole, so they are continuing to dig. I'm going to get a pretty good laugh once they finally realize that they've been off course, because anyone with common sense recognized this months ago.

Got to Guangzhou, now waiting for next flight.
Farewell, China....until we meet again!