Editor’s Note for Wednesday, April 13, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
My thoughts today:
On Monday, March 28, Shanghai reported a record high number of new COVID-19 cases: 3,500 people tested positive, a 40% increase from the day before. The city went into hard lockdown.
For context, today New York City reported 1,993 cases, while London reported 3,176 cases.
Two and a half weeks later, the cityโs residents are still not permitted free movement despite widespread reports of people not being able to buy enough food, parents being separated from their children because of positive COVID test results, and other problems caused when a powerful state shuts down a metropolis of 26 million people.
Although there are some signs that the government may be easing its lockdown measures, the crisis seems far from over. Beijing has not officially budged a nanometer from its COVID-zero policy. Today Xรญ Jรฌnpรญng ไน ่ฟๅนณ made it clear that the COVID-zero policy โis not going away,โ in the words of Bill Bishop, a perspicacious observer of Chinese politics.
One has to be a little careful when major Anglophone news media organizations get giddy at apparent failures of the Chinese Communist Party. There was the same tone of schadenfreude in much of the English language writing about Wuhan right at the beginning of the pandemic, 200 years ago in 2020.
But many of my dear old friends are locked up in their apartments in Shanghai right now, with dwindling options for food, healthcare, and normal life. As of April 18, 2022, Shanghai is a city of more than 26 million very pissed off people.
Our word of the day is extradite (ๅผๆธก yวndรน).
