An interview with Kelsie Liu from Wuhan University of Technology (WUT)
Wuhan is the first city that has the covid-19 outbreak during the pandemic. Kelsie Liu is a good friend of mine who was born and raised in Wuhan. During the pandemic, Kelsie Liu was studying at the Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan as a graduate student. Wuhan was the first city that had the outbreak of covid-19 around the world, and also was the first city put the outbreak under control. Kelsie had experienced a lookdown and curfew during the past 2 years in Wuhan. After she described the situation in Wuhan, there were some similarities and differences between China and USA’s lockdown. With the high density of the population and different available vaccines, the Chinese government has to use a different approach to control the covid-19 spreading. As a result, the residents in China had a different living experience than the residents in the US during the pandemic. Below were some interesting points that Kelsie brought up during the interview.
Q: What kinds of technic does the Chinese government use to control the pandemic?
A: Chinese government uses covid safety QRcode to track every citizen’s covid status. And every individual will need a safe covid status to enter any public location that they want to go to. Every citizen could download it from the mobile APP store. As a result, the government could also track everyone's location.
Q: How does this covid safety QRcode work?
A: The covid safety QRcode has 3 display statuses, green, yellow, and red. Green status means you are safe to go anywhere. Yellow means the individual who is in danger and needs to stay home and check. And Red means the individual tested positive for covid.
Q: How does the government determine your green status?
A: If a resident wants to stay in green status, the resident needs to do the covid testing at least once every 5 days. If there is anyone who tested positive for covid and went to the same place that the resident had been to, then the resident’s covid safety status will turn yellow. This is something everyone cannot control.
Q: How about yellow status?
A: If an individual is in yellow status, the individual needs to stay home and do the covid testing once per day for a consecutive 3 days period, if all the results are negative then the individual’s status will turn green again. There are some cases that will convert an individual’s status from green to yellow.
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If an individual travels to multiple places in one day, the mobile APP system might consider that individual has a high potential to endanger the public to infected covid. And that individual’s status might turn yellow.
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If one person tested positive for covid who lives in the same building and different apartment united with an individual, then that individual’s status will turn yellow.
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If more than 5 people tested positive for covid who live in the same neighborhood with an individual(the neighborhood normally is the same size as the Regents Court building complex with around 1000 residents population). Everyone who lives in this neighborhood will have the yellow status.
Q: What will happen if you have red status?
A: If you tested positive for covid, the special government personnel with the sealed suit will escort you to the isolation hospital to heal your infection. And the people who have direct contact with you will need to go to the government’s isolation location(normally a special hotel) to do a 7+7+14 plan. For the first 7 days, the individual will need to do covid testing 3 times a day. If the results are all negative, then the individual will need to do covid testing one time per day for the following 7 days. If the results are all negative, the individual was allowed to go back home to do 1 covid testing per day and self-isolation for 14 days. If all the results are negative, your status will turn green.
(Below are the 3 status for each individual, green, yellow, and red)
Q: Have you experienced any situation where the neighborhood was locked down?
A: Yes! There was one time that 3 students from our campus tested positive. And the whole university was locked down. All students and staff were ordered to do a covid test within 24hrs. Below is a picture of 1 am at the midnight, and everyone was still lined up for covid testing.
Q: Do you like the way how Chinese government controls the covid-19 outbreak?
A: Well, everything has its two sides. Although the covid safety QRcode technic limited the freedom of all citizens, it is a very efficient way to control the pandemic. As fewer people tested positive, more international flights were granted, and our life is getting better. I am looking forward to seeing the future.