Thanks for the info. That's what it sounded like when I saw the story on it.Yes. It's true. Everyone has had it on their phones since basically February.
It comes on an APP that you download. You can also get it through a common payment APP called Alipay, or a messaging APP called Wechat, both of which everybody has on their phones. Then it checks to see where you've been (I'm guessing based on GPS info and phone company info and car / train / taxi / bus details when you travel). These APPs, when you download them and register ask for your personal information and ID and whatnot, so I'm sure there are back doors built it for the government to keep track of people and to make sure people are where they're supposed to be... and this isn't just during corona, it's always been this way that the government keeps track of everybody, all the time, everywhere.
If you have young children or family who don't have phones you can set your account up to include their names so they can also move around during the outbreak. They are color-coded. Green means you can move around the area where you are living (everybody has, as a rule in China always, to register their "home town" where they are resident), yellow means that maybe you haven't finished your 14-day quarantine or that you traveled outside your home area, and red means that you've traveled to an affected area (Hubei or an another country which has experienced an outbreak) or that you've come into contact with a confirmed case.
It's "real time". That means that each time you go somewhere they ask you for it and you have to run the check. Just cuz you're green right now doesn't mean you'll stay green indefinitely. I know people who had green codes that suddenly changed to red when it was discovered that they'd possibly come into contact (maybe on a train or in a restaurant, etc.) with a confirmed case after contact tracing. So, basically, it constantly updates. If you try and get through a checkpoint by showing them a picture of your QR code (which maybe you took yesterday), they'll ask you to go to the APP and update it and show them the updated one.
I think it's great if it helps contain and stabilize things and helps to get thing back up and running. I'm sure there are libertarian arguments against it. But, like I said, for me it's been really good because it's allowed me to move around. Hasn't hampered my movement, though, as a foreigner, I tend to try and keep a low profile during this outbreak. Other foreigners... not so much. They seem bound and determined to show everybody that they "ain't skerd" and refuse to let the virus bully them into giving up their "freedoms". For sure there are folks on this board who would pull out their shotguns if anybody told them that they had to comply with this requirement. To each his own...
This is just my experience. I'm sure if you look around on the net you'll be able to find anecdotal stories which paint a different picture from what my experience.
For me it's clear what China is and what to expect when living / working here. I think some folks get fooled by the "capitalist" trappings and want to believe or expect that they're living in a place like London or New York or Paris. It's easy to forget, lights and glitter and advanced tech and all, this is still, in many ways, Mao's communist China and every foreigner should remind themselves of that all the time. The fact that you see nice cars on the streets, or people wearing the latest fashions or enjoying pop / rap / hip-hop music, and getting tatoos doesn't change the underlying fact.
Here's what the Shanghai one (where I am) looks like:
It's both impressive and frightening to realize that they can change somebody's status from green to red based on that person sitting close on a train to another person that's already red. It allows them to get some control over potential clusters fairly quickly.
I don't think there's any way something like that would be accepted inside the USA. At least not knowingly, and not at this point in time.
Stay green.
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