I returned to Shanghai last night after a few days away. The trip was uneventful, except for a couple of days of trepidation at the end of the trip – but it was also a new experience for our country.
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Early that morning (10th), I took the first bus from Guangyuan to Jianmenguan, but I was blocked. It was the first time I encountered this on my journey. The arrow is green, and I thought I was fine. “
Why? He pointed to the lower right corner: “You see you have red here. “
The next step is to talk. No amount of explanation will help. Shanghai had a case yesterday, and Shanghainese can’t get in, but anyway, your card has turned red. So what if your body temperature is normal? The virus has a 14-day incubation period with false negatives, don’t you understand? How do you prove that you have never been to Yingqian Village in Zhuqiao Town, Pudong, where the case was reported? Besides, your ID card is from Pudong New Area. How do you know when you say you’ve never touched a case? I’m sorry you had to come, but what does this have to do with me?
By the end of the day, he was too lazy to talk to me, “Next. “
This is also a lesson in the “one man, ten thousand men” of the Jianmen Pass. I had no choice but to find a place to sit by myself and be depressed for a while. I mentioned this to Suda on WeChat, and she and about 20 friends from the Shanghai Nature Watch went to Tangjiahe and arranged to meet me in Guangyuan at dusk that day. When they found out about this, they all panicked because many of them had planned to stay in Guangyuan for two days and had made hotel reservations, but when they called, they were told that the hotel had refused to accommodate Shanghai residents.
Later Suda said: “Although you yourself had a closed door at the Jianmen Pass, but thanks to you this information, otherwise everyone would be miserable, so you still have a merit. If they went back to the hotel after lunch, they might have to sleep on the streets – because the last flight from Guangyuan to Shanghai was at night! 8:00 PM. Almost everyone immediately checked out of their rooms, changed their flights, and flew back to Shanghai in a hurry.
2
It’s something you can’t even predict before you leave. Halfway through the trip, a porter at Pudong Airport suddenly confirms the diagnosis, and then all the people with a “history of contact with Shanghai in 14 days” are suspected, and being kept out of the scenic area is still a trivial matter, and you may even face the dilemma of not having a place to stay.
At the beginning of March, at the height of the epidemic, I wrote a piece called “We are all from Hubei”, arguing that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to prevention and control would be difficult to avoid, and that because of the Epidemics randomly erupt in different places, like the Hubei people who suffered from discrimination at that time, and could happen to us at any time: “This time it was the Hubei people, next time who says it won’t be you and me? “
The other day, I said a mouthful on Douban about my encounter at Jianmenguan, and there were those who were sarcastic (“Shanghai people also have today”), those who were kind (“My home is in Guangyuan, come live with me”), those who were happy (“It just so happens that I don’t have to go to Shanghai on business”), and many more who were fearful and disgusted by the simplicity and brutality of this one-size-fits-all approach – even Shanghai only sealed off the village of Yingqian where the incident occurred, but when I went outside, it became a “14-day history of contact with Shanghai” and even “Shanghai people” were all shut out.
Another noteworthy voice was: “You say ‘one size fits all’ is bad? So what’s your better solution? This is how China avoided getting out of control like it did abroad! “
There have always been voices like this one defending the assumption of an either/or choice: it’s one or the other, or it’s out of control. Rather, it does not deny that there is no cost to cutting across the board, only that the cost is worth it: if opponents care about “not letting go for the sake of being ‘unforgivable,'” it is not that the cost is worth it. A ‘one’ and ‘wrongly kill a thousand'”, then this view emphasizes that “The only way to do this is to go as far as to ‘kill a thousand by mistake.’ ‘Not letting one off the hook'”.
In other words, the real point of contention here is not whether there is a cost, but whether the cost is worth paying. At this point, some believe that every individual has value and should not be sacrificed, and that it is not necessary to go to such extremes in order to achieve the goal. Ambitious goals, “at all costs” is a very common slogan.
Admittedly, the latter view may have a very deep psychosocial basis in China. The “tram dilemma” often debated in European and American universities (whether to sacrifice the majority or the minority when faced with the dilemma) is not a problem at all for many Chinese students, and often is. There is a lopsided utilitarian choice – at the expense of the minority, of course.
The individual/group, minority/majority choices involve fundamental value positions that are difficult to compromise on, so let’s take a different tack now: is one size fits all really the best (not to mention the only) means of achieving a goal?
3
No, it does not.
The most regrettable point is that, if the price is worth sacrificing, then so be it, but “killing a thousand by mistake” does not necessarily mean that “one will not be spared”.
Even though it is generally known as “one size fits all” in China, in reality the situation varies greatly from place to place, and the few provinces that have done a good job in prevention and control are precisely the ones with the so-called “fine epidemic prevention”; the experimental fields are the most rigidly managed, the least effective, and the most in trouble.
Why is it that the most stringent control is already in place, and it would be better to “kill a thousand by mistake” than to “spare one”?
The reason for this is very complicated, there are roughly three points: complete control to the social standstill is actually impossible; prevention and control is a high test of the level of governance of the technical work, indiscriminate and coarse approach, often at the expense of should not be sacrificed, but did not control the real should be controlled; one-size-fits-all system, compartmentalization, lack of coordination.
In the case of my encounter outside the Jianmen Pass, even if I have a suspicion, but what is the use of not letting me into the scenic area? Do I run outside and not infect others? –But the scenic area staff doesn’t care about that, as long as nothing happens in his area of responsibility.
That day Suda also wanted to cancel the rest of the trip and flee back to Shanghai that night, but I was able to visit the Thousand Buddha Cliff and the Guangyuan City Museum in the afternoon, and asked if I could stay at the Jinjiang Star in Hanzhong (“We weren’t informed…”). It’s just that we don’t want to spend the night in Guangyuan or Xi’an. It’s also a big data of itinerary, in Hanzhong, Xi’an many places see that green arrow, glance at the also let go. Ironically, last night back in Shanghai, the center of the recent storm was the calmest: Hongqiao Airport doesn’t require big data, but rather health codes from all over the country.
Some are limited to those who have been to Zhuqiao Town in Pudong New Area within 14 days and will not be accepted; some who have been to Pudong New Area within 14 days will need a nucleic acid test report within 7 days to check in; and some who have been to Shanghai within 14 days will need a nucleic acid test report.
In other words, besides the inconvenience of not allowing me to visit and not accommodating Shanghai visitors, there was very little real control of the outbreak – although, perhaps a little, it was news like this that deterred Shanghainese who were planning to go out, or maybe even more than Shanghainese, because you never know where you’re going to go for a few days and then suddenly there’s a case somewhere in your province or city.
Early March discrimination against Hubei people One of the big problems was how to self-certify that there was no “history of contact with Hubei within 14 days”, and now the trip data actually solves that problem to some extent.
That day, while waiting for the bus outside the Jianmen Pass, I also met a group of old Shanghai aunts coming out of it, why were they okay? When asked, it turns out that they had been away for 31 days, so there was no “history of contact with Shanghai within 14 days”. In terms of vaccination, “Shanghai People” and “14 Days” are the same. Shanghai contact history” are two different concepts, except that the control like Shanghai’s was further narrowed down to the village of Yingqian, where the incident took place, to avoid more inadvertent injuries.
The “better way” is not “conceived”, I’m afraid, but rather “evolved” through constant exploration, optimization, and “evolution” in order to maximize the effect with less cost.
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