Editor’s Note for Monday, April 25, 2022

My thoughts today:

Are Beijingers phlegmatic, sanguine, stoic, or just plain kidding themselves? We’ll see in the coming weeks, but many residents of the capital — including The China Project’s Anthony Tao — aren’t too worried about harsh Shanghai-style lockdowns coming to Beijing, despite rising COVID-19 infection rates.

But the lockdown on Shanghai just got worse for some people in Pudong as authorities have started putting up fencing to keep residents inside some apartment buildings. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is starting to ease up, and there are reports that “China’s Anthony Fauci” — epidemiologist Zhōng Nánshān 钟南山 — promoted medicines without disclosing his links with the manufacturers.

Read on for details on all these developments.

COVID-19 lockdown in the capital: Some Beijingers panic-buy as others remain phlegmatic

Our word of the day is One Person’s Shakespeare (一个人的莎士比亚 yīgè rén de shāshìbǐyǎ), the name of a popular online commentator who says Beijing will not get Shanghaied — see our top story today for details.