What is the situation in Beijing now? I understand that everyone is being tested and many schools are closing.
‘On Friday there were 49 new infections in the capital. The authorities call this ‘very serious’. That sounds crazy to people in the Netherlands, but here it is all hands on deck with 49 cases. There is a great fear that omikron cannot be kept under control.
‘In the city you hardly notice the so-called ‘critical situation’, except that everyone has to be tested every two days. They want to make sure they detect all infections. If you want to enter somewhere, you have to show your test result at the entrance. There are tents all over the street where you can do a test.
‘At the same time, a sword of Damocles is constantly hanging over your head: what if you become infected, or if someone near you tests positive? You would rather not experience that. If you test positive yourself, you will have to go to a central quarantine location. Your entire apartment building will then also go into lockdown, and the places you’ve been will go into a ‘soft’ lockdown. Residents there are not allowed to leave their neighbourhood.
‘You hear stories about people who are suddenly locked up in their building or neighborhood, or even about an entire school class that had to go into central quarantine because of one infected student. Parents were not allowed to join. Fortunately, Beijing has not yet reached a situation like in Shanghai, where very young children and even babies were separated from their parents.’
Do the people of Beijing understand this hard corona approach?
‘The reality of China is that you have a limited choice in terms of covid policy: the choice is between strict, extremely strict or life-threatening strict, as in Shanghai. There, people in lockdown had insufficient access to food and medical care. The people of Beijing are now in an extremely strict phase, but think: as long as we don’t end up in the situation of Shanghai. So they support the strict measures taken by the government.
‘The propaganda of the state media also plays a major role. It constantly emphasizes how dangerous the virus still is and how people can lead their lives safely thanks to the government. This may be incomprehensible to the outside world, but many people here see the threat of Shanghai and think: we are still good, we are lucky that things are being handled strictly to prevent worse.’
Will the Chinese be told that corona is on the decline in Europe, thanks to the less deadly omikron variant?
‘Not in the government media, but on social media. That confuses many Chinese. When I tell people in Beijing about the situation in Europe, that there are many infections but in most cases without serious symptoms, there are many who do not believe me. It clashes with the image they hear every day: corona is dangerous.
‘The atmosphere in Shanghai is different. Residents there have been in lockdown for more than a month, paying a high price for the zero-covid policy. They also see around them that many people become infected, but hardly have any symptoms. So there is more protest to be heard. For example, on Thursday there was an action in which people hit pots and pans out of their windows to express their dissatisfaction.’
What is the situation now in Shanghai?
“Officially, things are getting better. There were 15 thousand infections in the past 24 hours. That is considerably less than the peak of last week, when there were 20,000 infections. According to the authorities, there are also fewer neighborhoods in lockdown. It is unclear whether residents are actually allowed to go out there. There are examples of neighborhoods where the rules are applied more strictly than is officially admitted.
The economy would also get going again. Factories have to work in a closed loop system: the staff are not allowed to leave the factory site, they even sleep there. Officially, 70 percent of businesses are open again. But in reality, work is being done on the back burner. Because as a company, in the middle of a lockdown, you have to get your staff and raw materials to the company. That’s not easy.
“The lockdown, especially in Shanghai, is exhausting the population. They must have been inside for so long, and they are not sure how long it will last. This is a modern, cosmopolitan city where many residents live quite a luxurious lifestyle. It really is a huge blow to a city like Shanghai.’
What about vaccinations in China?
’88 percent of the population has been vaccinated, but the elderly are a major problem. Half of the over-80s are not vaccinated. When the vaccine was first launched, the government focused on the working population, the group aged 18 to 60, to protect the economy. The number of infections among them had to be reduced to zero.
‘The vaccination of other groups was even discouraged at first, possibly also because the Chinese vaccines had not been tested on the elderly. But this has created a lot of mistrust among the elderly, and that is now a problem. Many elderly people are still quite reluctant to be vaccinated, despite campaigns to increase the pressure.’