I've seen numerous instances of policies starting/stopping pretty much immediately. Before this month's moves, the end of our (SH) lockdown at midnight on June 1 is the next most recent that comes to mind. While isolated lockdowns continued after that, most of the municipality-wide rules simply disappeared and public transit went from ~5% to ~99% overnight.

Another data point suggesting that the HK/mainland border might open soon

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...-shift-towards

Hong Kong to send ‘thousands of officers’ to checkpoints along mainland Chinese border ahead of shift towards freer travel

• Government sources say relevant departments preparing to test all customs checkpoint clearance systems, including those at high-speed rail terminus
• Beijing eager to fully reopen border from early next month to revive both Hong Kong and mainland economies, source with knowledge on matter says

Thousands of customs, immigration and police officers will be sent to land checkpoints to manage predicted surge in traffic as the border between Hong Kong and mainland China is expected to fully reopen next month, the Post has learned.

A government source on Thursday said the relevant departments were preparing to test all customs checkpoint clearance systems at the city’s high-speed rail that extends into Guangdong province and along other sections of the border as authorities needed weeks to prepare for the relaxed rules.

Another insider said the city’s rail operator was gearing up to resume the service by performing frequent drills.

“Despite that most of the border checkpoints have been closed, their operations have remained normal during the past three years with staff working there to provide regular security, checks and maintenance,” the insider said.

“For the high-speed rail and other cross-border rail services, there has been a minimum rail service to transport the mainland staff to and from the mainland. To reopen its services, the MTR Corporation only needs to redeploy its staff again for the rail borders.”

Most of Hong Kong’s border checkpoints have been closed since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, including those at Lok Ma Chau, Heung Yuen Wai and the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus.

Under the current restrictions, travellers can enter the mainland from Hong Kong using the city’s airport, as well as the control points at Shenzhen Bay and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.

Sources previously told the Post that the city was set to fully reopen its borders with the mainland and resume the high-speed train service to Guangdong from early next month.

The expected reopening follows the government’s decision to roll back anti-epidemic restrictions, such as easing entry rules for arrivals and no longer relying on the “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app, despite a significant increase recently in Hong Kong’s virus caseloads.

Thursday marked the highest number of daily cases since March 18, with health officials reporting 17,080 infections, 831 of which were imported, and 19 additional deaths.

The city’s overall tally stands at 2,307,397 cases and 11,075 related fatalities.

Mainland 2,229 cases yesterday
https://www.i-cable.com/%e6%96%b0%e8...B%98%E5%B3%B0/
https://news.now.com/home/internatio...?newsId=501161

HK has 15K cases today

We must be using a different counting system

Didn't mainland officially stop counting asymptomatic cases earlier this week?

Yes, not sure why this is still discussed as some kind of big revelation.
The non-counting is at official policy level at the moment, and has little "Ah, gotcha!" effect at this point.
Beijing is likely over 10 million cases that have it or just had it. It's predicted to go into the hundreds of millions across all of China soon.

Just to be clear, they are not counting most symptomatic cases either.

Added; of much graver concern ought to be the apparent complete lack of counting deaths.

Family reports from Beijing are basically saying that a) it's amazing how everything suddenly disappeared with no comment and b) everyone is now getting COVID to the surprise of also nobody c) everyone is simultaneously relieved and worried

Even if you told me 2,000 hospitalisation of old people due to Covid yesterday, that figure seems to be a little lowball given let it rip.

Another bad Soviet joke - we pretend Covid doesn't exist and don't impose restrictions on you/your family/your city if you too pretend it doesn't exist?

Or is it like homosexuality in the US military in the Clinton era? Don't ask, don't tell?

That's pretty much it, yes.

The flight out of PVG was bizarre:
1) They confiscate hand sanitizer at the security check probably becuse the alcohol based ones are flammable?
2) The flight was 100% masked (maybe not cockpit, don't know).
Although it's not required of course, the FAs seemed relieved and were wearing masks also. There was no announcement about masks.

Maybe it’s fine, provided hospitals don’t get overwhelmed.

The best case scenario is everyone gets flu equivalent for a week over the next three months.

But nowhere overseas where we had an off/on scenario: Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore (?) were hospitals not overwhelmed during the transition.

Supposedly the crematoriums in Beijing are working overtime (not sure if actually true).

Reported here too. But it was explained away by crematorium workers falling sick en masse as part of relaxations.

Not increased deaths from Covid.



in other news Shanghai suspends school in-person teaching for all but three most-senior years

So it seems bumpy but nothing really bad.

with a bit of luck, hospitals can cope

and honestly, unvaccinated people should pay their hospitals bills (and be the last getting treatment in pure Singapore style, throw the anti vaxxers under the bus finally!)

Since this is a travel thread I'm brainstorming how much travel they'd let under the emperor has no clothes phase goes on.

I suspect they will take the opportunity to reopen business travel - those that keep FDI going and keep jobs directly going very soon. Visitors who might go to hospital and video all those colds and to funeral homes and video all that smoke, not so much yet.

Reuters is still spitting out this same story (increased Covid deaths leads to crematoriums operating extra shifts), and everyone is running with it.