Diary: In Shanghai
Mimi Jiang, 12 May 2022
In Chinese, positive and negative test results are translated as yang and yin. Yang shares the same sound as the word for sheep, meaning that sheep have become the most disliked animals of all. All sheep sculptures in public spaces have been covered with black plastic bags. Small talk has changed from ‘have you eaten?’ to ‘how many sheep are in your building today?’ The strangest thing about this phase of Covid control has been the discrepancy between the results given by staff at Disease Control and the app that gives you your PCR results. Many people have received calls from Disease Control saying they are positive even though the app results are negative. This has led to verbal and even physical fights as police ask the ‘sheep’ to join the ‘quarantine herd’ and the ‘sheep’ bleats back, citing the app. Finally, the government decided to use another app for mass testing, but it crashed on the first day and had scanning problems on the second.