People also had low expectations with regard to stability.

E.g., in Chengdu, city officials allowed vendors to set up stalls on the streets.

Stimulus policies remained modest: instead of offering American-style cash payments to many citizens, the Chinese government preferred to give entrepreneurs some space to figure out their own solutions.The Party had never allowed the protections of independent unions, and across China salaries were cut and workers were laid off. This was a recurring theme-in economic terms, individuals seemed to be largely on their own.There are facilities on campus to do a second level screening and clinics to perform COVID-19 tests. Students, faculty and workers are regularly screened for symptoms many times a day.Some teachers stopped wearing masks, although nearly all of the children kept them on. In the middle of May, the Chinese Ministry of Education declared that students no longer needed to cover their faces if they were in low-risk areas.After the lockdown, elementary school never bothered with more effective but disruptive policies-reducing class size, remodelling facilities, instituting outdoor learning-because the virus was not spreading in Chengdu.Most interaction was done using presentations, voice and text. Interactive video was a luxury that rarely worked.Nearly 30 million college students were being educated online, along with an estimated 180 million schoolchildren. Much of education was done online during the lockdown period.Many aspects of the Chinese strategy could never be adopted in America or in any other democracy.By early April, all travellers who entered from abroad, regardless of nationality, had to undergo a strictly monitored two-week quarantine in a state-approved facility. The lockdown had been strictly enforced, and any infected person was immediately removed from his or her household and isolated in a government clinic. Very little was left to individual choice or responsibility.

If a family were suspected of exposure to the virus, it wasn’t unheard-of for their door to be sealed shut while tests and contact-tracing were being conducted. Neighborhood committees, the most grassroots level of Communist Party organization, enforced the rules, and in many places they limited households to sending one individual outside every two or three days to buy necessities.

The Chinese lockdown was more intense than almost anywhere else in the world.

Much of the text is lifted from the article with some editorial changes, but rearranged and grouped for clarity. It is a long read, well worth your time but I present here a dry “CliffNotes” version of it, focusing on the COVID-19 part of the article.

Rivertown peter hessler