The rest of the world is "moving on"? ymmv. in oregon we are mandated to wear masks outdoors and have to show proof of vax to attend some high school sporting events (also outdoors) that maybe have 50 people in the crowd. with hospitalizations among vax'd growing among the mRNA countries and booster mandates a seeming possibility, i'm not feeling like we are moving on just yet.

Now that the dust has pretty much settled in my case (I say "pretty much" because I still need to report to my overlooker frequently, something I can handle), I want add a few more thoughts. Please realize that I only have ONE personal data point, but my comments incorporate the wisdom of others who are far more experienced.

-Definitely fly to Shanghai. It doesn't matter whether or not you like Shanghai because you won't actually see it. The reason Shanghai is a better option than Beijing, Shenzhen, Xi'an, etc is because the 14 days thing is pretty much set in stone
-There is a small catch to "set in stone"; 14 = 21 if you don't provide them a Shanghai address; this is a pickle that I didn't foresee
-ideally, we should give them a residential address, but --if this isn't an option-- book a friendly +7 hotel. You will have a lot of time to pull off this task during days 1-4

The main difference seems to be that in China being vaccinated gets you no special treatment compared to not being vaccinated. Everyone gets the same quarantine, or gets rounded up regardless of vaccination status if you’re unlucky enough to ride the subway or be on a flight with someone potentially infected.

It seems Europe and the USA are being much more accommodating to vaccinated people than China is. Hopefully that will change soon.

I agree, and in case it's not obvious, you're looking at forking over $7k (I tried to keep costs down, to the extent that I stayed with my friend in Mountain View instead of a hotel) at minimum in order to come here (add another $2k for the return flight, but this is easy).

Whether or not it's worth it is a personal/company decision.

ETA: I suppose it's possible for US people to pull off the drill for less than $5k, but if you set the benchmark at 7, you will be okay.

If you buy round trip from China and are OK with economy I think you can do it for less than $4k. I paid $2300 for my RT flight, $320 for my test to come back and the quarantine is 550rmb/night for 14 days which puts me right around the $3.9k usd mark. Not cheap by any means and I’m lucky to have my usa home in a departure city to China negating the need for the flight to and 2 days stay in the city before departure, but still not completely unreasonable considering I was usually dropping $3.5k on a RT biz ticket pre-Covid at least twice a year.

The real pain is the timesuck of the quarantine.

Good points. I spent $7500 on the drill, so I used $7k as a benchmark. In retrospect, I probably could have shaved $1500 off if I had been a little smarter.

It’s cost be about 4x more than you on my last round trip out of China and back.

Expats are flooding out of China.

I'm honestly inclined to go with 10x because it used to be possible to fly over here for $750. This isn't the case at present; we are confronted with a sacred cow. Is a China visit worth $2k, $5k, or $7.5k to you? I suppose I am fine with 7.5k myself, but this hurdle pretty much eliminates casual tourists, even if you can reduce it by half.

This also assumes you value your time at zero. For a lot of people, myself included, 2 weeks of my time is worth more than $7500. That's only $535 of time value per day.

From an article in the HK forum https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/peopl...despite-exodus

I saw an article with the China numbers but can't find it. Basically it's going down too

It's possible to get things done during q time; in fact, we could argue that it helps us focus. That having been said, my threshold is currently ONE.

travelinmanS I want to bring you a care package. Please message me wrt your hotel's rules, and I'll make it happen.

This is a feature, not a bug, for XJP.

”4x more than you”

mine was over $25k in total cost

Yea the old ways of the party are rearing their head now.

My understanding is that you're in hotel quarantine for 14 days in Shanghai and then you're free to move around the city for the remaining 7 days before you can fly to your final destination, is that not correct?