Social distancing in Shanghai

I.
It feels fitting to write this at a time when Hubei province and its capital city, Wuhan, have finally begun to emerge from their two-month lockdown. For the last few weeks, locally transmitted cases of Covid-19 are down to single digits; nearly all the new cases in China have been imported.

I’m an American who has lived in China for more than a decade; for the last five years, I’ve called Shanghai home. As I write this, the city is well on its way to returning to normal—and it’s clear we got off easy. The city's population is 25 million, but we've only had about 400 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and four deaths. It’s now quite obvious that Shanghai and the rest of China were spared the worst because of the draconian measures implemented in Hubei province to contain the coronavirus from spreading. Wuhan was fully locked down, with residents specifically instructed to stay indoors, bus and train service halted, and no outbound travel at all. Elsewhere in China, some other cities raised their alert levels as well, limiting the number of outings per household (e.g. one person could leave the house to buy groceries every two days). By contrast, in Shanghai, social distancing measures for individuals were more of an advisory than strictly mandated.

Offices, schools, shops, and restaurants here did close, but that wasn’t unusual—at first. You see, in China, normal life and business come to a standstill for a week every winter; the biggest cities empty out as people return to their hometowns to spend the Lunar New Year holiday with their families. Did that make the timing of the Covid-19 outbreak in China better or worse? It’s hard to say. The number of travelers criss-crossing the nation in mid- to late January no doubt hastened the spread of the virus to other provinces. On the other hand, schools were already shut and the entire nation was looking forward to hunkering down for a period of inactivity. We just never expected it to last so long.

Hubei province got the lockdown order on January 23, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve. As news reports about the coronavirus grew increasingly grim, authorities extended the holiday from the usual week to 13 days ... then 18 days. Then office workers were encouraged to start teleworking and schools began using distance-learning platforms to restart classes. Late February came and went, and people were still staying indoors. Here in Shanghai, a handful of restaurants and shops stayed open throughout. Supermarkets were fully stocked. Empty buses continued to roll by on empty streets. In the evenings, I went out for my daily stroll. Everybody kept their distance.

II.
The first time somebody held up a contactless thermometer and told me to hold out my wrist, I felt personally affronted. “Maybe I don’t want to enter your grocery store!” I wanted to say, but instead, I quickly reminded myself that this wasn't personal. If I were a business owner, would I not owe a duty of care to my customers—not to expose them to contagion? Moreover, as someone who did not own a thermometer, how else was I going to find out if my temperature was actually running high? Inside the store, new signage at the cash registers requested cashless payments only. Here, too, I had to bow to logic. They didn’t want my grubby bills; I didn’t want them to make change with their germy coins. These new inconveniences were for my protection as well.

And yes, it was embarrassing to discover I’d been washing my hands wrong my entire life. The 20 seconds of sudsing and scrubbing recommended by doctors seemed like an eternity. But then I learned that soap does more than getting microbes slippery enough to sluice off. Apparently, soap molecules grab onto virus membranes and literally tear them apart—like a toddler demolishing string cheese. But only if you give the soap enough time to do its work. Suddenly, handwashing was transformed from an ordeal into delightful self-care.

I admit to being a late adopter of facemasks. In Asia, even before Covid-19, it was not unusual for people suffering from a cold to wear facemasks as a courtesy to others, but suddenly I was seeing them on every face. For a few days I went about barefaced—but felt increasingly self-conscious. By the time I realized masks were socially mandatory, there were none left to buy, either in the pharmacies or online. I tried pulling a scarf up around my face for a day or two, but I wasn’t fooling anybody.

In the end, I decided to make my own facemask. Would a DIY fabric mask ward off any Covid-19 pathogens that were determined to invade my mucous membranes? The science said no—only N95 masks actually offer substantive protection, but nobody out on the street was wearing an N95 mask. In other words, my DIY mask would be just about as effective as everybody else’s. Not that anybody would get close enough to judge my handiwork.

It was a fun sewing project. I had plenty of scrap fabric at home, but even the tasteful plaids and stripes seemed a bit garish. Eventually I found a black apron and cannibalized the fabric to make three washable/reusable facemasks. Tips for anyone embarking on their own DIY mask project: 1) If you’re not sure the fabric is 100% cotton or linen, do not iron with high heat. 2) Elastic ear loops are better than a behind-the-neck head strap. Ear loops all the way.

Only much later did I learn about the government rationing system that entitled me—after I registered with the local neighborhood committee—to purchase five surgical facemasks from a designated pharmacy. I consider that small stash of pleated blue masks to be my facemask “formalwear”—to be worn only in situations where I need to present my passport, like airports and train stations. The rest of the time, I still wear my DIY fabric masks. Somewhere along the way, I realized what masks mean. Covering one’s face with a thing that sometimes chafes and always fogs your glasses is inconvenient. Anybody who accepts this inconvenience is more likely to be taking other precautions as well, such as careful hand-washing and physical distancing. A mask says: I take this epidemic and its risks seriously. Once I realized that, wearing the mask no longer felt like a chore.

I don’t know what measures are being mandated by your local authorities or by the rapidly evolving norms of your community and neighborhood. Perhaps, in time, you too will submit to infrared temperature guns at the entrance to every store. Maybe you will eventually find yourself frowning at the thoughtlessness of those who go unmasked in public. Who can say?

III. 
So yes, adjusting to social distancing is a game of degrees. I did things on a Thursday that my Monday self would have balked at. The assumptions I held dear in early February seemed downright laughable by the end of that month. There are some types of new knowledge that the brain seems to need to incubate for days before the body can accept it. Lag is real; everybody’s behind the curve. We all acclimatize at our own pace. Just anticipate that things will continue to change. Keep listening to the experts.

Even under the best case scenario—if authorities in your country managed to enforce complete compliance with the precautions today—your country can look forward to several weeks of bad news. The numbers on the Covid-19 dashboards will rise like floodwaters. Haggard doctors and nurses will pause only to share their horror stories. When those moments come, I encourage you to respond not with despair but instead a renewed commitment to do your part, whatever that looks like: volunteering, donating, calling up your elected officials to urge support for crucial legislation ... or simply staying indoors and refusing to go stir-crazy.

A virus can’t spread if it can’t jump to the next host. The sooner everybody embraces social distancing, the faster we stomp the curve.

It has been instructive for me to ride out the Covid-19 outbreak in a country that is all too used to upheaval. China has experienced incredible prosperity over the past 30 years or so, but the national character was deeply shaped by the decades of chaos in the 20th century: foreign invasion, civil war, famine, and a Cultural Revolution. That’s all within living memory. So too is social solidarity and mass mobilization. In one WeChat group conversation, I saw one person praising their neighbor for self-isolating immediately after potential exposure to the coronavirus. “He has excellent moral fiber,” others exclaimed.

“We’re all doing our part. All of China is doing zuo yuezi,” another netizen quipped, referring to the traditional month-long confinement that new mothers undergo to restore their strength after giving birth. It was funny, but it did make me wonder: What were we giving birth to?

I can tell you this much: You're going to come out of this with a new set of habits. Your daily routines and rituals have been disrupted and you're consciously and unconsciously adopting new behaviors. All I’m saying is: Take this opportunity to form good new habits. For example, people who are cooped up at home may—at some point—find that consuming content all day breeds sluggishness, whereas creating something for others can lead to a flow state that is powerfully energizing. When your country’s curfew finally loosens and you fully re-emerge, the world will look different too. Your old instincts will bump up against the new habits ... and you get to choose which ones to take with you into the future.

IV. 
I admit that some anti-Covid-19 measures here in China that relate to monitoring and privacy have given me pause. The latest development is the Health Code, a mobile phone-based monitoring system that indicates whether the user has been in close contact with an individual who has contracted Covid-19. I understand why this exists. There are plenty of little old ladies on the streets of Shanghai, and if my using the Health Code helps protect them, so be it. Social solidarity (and the Chinese government) may yet demand something that today-me thinks is overkill. I can’t predict the future.

Has fear been motivating people in China to practice social distancing and voluntary isolation? (By fear, I mean both apprehension about the coronavirus and knowing that the government would not hesitate to enforce the protocols.) Yes, of course. But we—Chinese citizens and foreign expats alike—also followed the rules because we were concerned about our neighbors and our elders, we were moved by the stories coming out of Wuhan, we were buoyed by the feeling of shared sacrifice, and we were heartened when the case numbers began to drop. When your actions are being motivated by both anxiety and altruism, it feels better to focus on compassion.

V. 
Covid-19 has not been stamped out in China. For now, it has been controlled—we managed to press pause. And it only takes one asymptomatic or presymptomatic person with their respiratory droplets to start the dominoes falling again. But there is every reason to believe that new flareups can be contained quite quickly, now that the infrastructure is in place (and national pride is at stake). Everybody in China now knows what a fever and dry cough might indicate; the testing, quarantine, and treatment are extremely efficient; and in a health care system that is not overwhelmed, it is entirely feasible to do the painstaking contact-tracing that disrupts a hotspot from forming. I really hope I’m right about this.

VI. 
This was a popular cartoon that circulated on Chinese social media in February.

Let me explain what's going on. The patient in the isolation ward is a bowl of noodles: regan mian, a Wuhan specialty. The friends crowding the window to offer their love and support are foods representing several other Chinese provinces. They’re holding up signs that say: "Jiayou!" a phrase which translates to "Stay strong! Fight on!"

Jiayou is what you say to motivate athletes who are flagging or students about to take an important test; jiayou is all-purpose encouragement. In late January, one week into Wuhan’s strict lockdown—when nobody had any idea how long it might last—the people of the city began hollering solidarity to each other from their windows: “WUHAN JIAYOU!”

So why does a bowl of regan mian noodles represent Wuhan? Honestly, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fitting mascot for the city. When I visited Wuhan two years ago, I snapped these photos on a busy street in the early morning.

It's not unusual in any big city to see commuters wolfing down breakfast as they hurry to catch a bus, but rarely does eating-and-walking involve a bowl and chopsticks. That's how much Wuhan folks love their regan mian.

Still not convinced? Here's the "NO EATING ALLOWED" poster for Wuhan public transit.

Now, as Wuhan wakes up from its nightmare, I like to imagine that little cartoon regan mian patient being discharged from the hospital. He's a bit frazzled from two months of confinement, but ready to rejoin the world and reconstruct “normal life” by exercising old muscles—and new ones as well.

And as the curfews sweep across the globe, as I browse photos of echoingly empty thoroughfares, watch videos of people serenading their neighbors from their balconies and giving nightly ovations for health care workers, the only thing I can say is: Jiayou, world! Fight on!

- Lilly