How to face the virus

The COVID-19 misery to stay around, not just in China but around the world.
So, once again I repeat some guidelines how to deal with it. The hysteria in China with masks and other continues but actually Western countries start to be more reasonable and with a scientific approach.

Symptoms:
As I mentioned earlier you can even do an online test. Basically watch out for:
Sudden respiratory infection accompanied by fever of at least 38.5C, dry cough, throat ache, difficulty breathing. And just returned from a high-risk zone or in contact with a suspected patient, within the previous 14 days.
Recommendation in Europe when having those symptoms: if the patient is in reasonable condition, stay home and get better and avoid any contact with others. If getting worse, go to hospital after alerting the GP. Go in isolation.

Also this article:
“Surfaces? Sneezes? Sex? How the Coronavirus Can and Cannot Spread, What you need to know about how the virus is transmitted.”
Pretty clear guidelines, too many people are paranoid without reason, Chinese being experts in total hysteria.
So, stay away from sick people and don’t touch your face.
Did I mention “masks”? Nope.

In the meantime, in Beijing and in Belgium

New masks in Beijing. And do enjoy your stay in Sanya!

Some new cases in Belgium, looks like all after trip to Italy.

Yes we have too many ministers of health in Belgium as I reported yesterday.
There would be 8:
– Maggie De Block – federal government
– Wouter Beke – Flanders
– Christie Morreale – Wallonia
– Valérie Glatigny – French community
– Bénédicte Linard – French community
– Alain Marron – whatever position, French side
– Elke Van den Brandt – whatever position, Flemish side
– Antonios Antoniadis – German community

Color-coded QR system for coronavirus tracking

As I announced earlier, it is coming to Beijing and with the usual confusion.

Explains the NYT:
The Alipay Health Code, as China’s official news media has called the system, was first introduced in the eastern city of Hangzhou — a project by the local government with the help of Ant Financial, a sister company of the e-commerce giant Alibaba.
People in China sign up through Ant’s popular wallet app, Alipay, and are assigned a color code — green, yellow or red — that indicates their health status. The system is already in use in 200 cities and is being rolled out nationwide, Ant says.
Neither the company nor Chinese officials have explained in detail how the system classifies people. That has caused fear and bewilderment among those who are ordered to isolate themselves and have no idea why.

And more from SCMP:
“Beijing rolls out colour-coded QR system for coronavirus tracking despite concerns over privacy, inaccurate ratings. Beijing residents will be assigned coloured QR codes, with only those with green codes being able to move around the city freely.”
2 March 2020
https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/3064574/beijing-rolls-out-colour-coded-qr-system-coronavirus-tracking

Edited extract:

China’s capital city has joined a national initiative to assign residents coloured QR codes that determine whether they have to be quarantined, despite concerns of mislabeling and privacy leaks.
The QR code system assigns users one of three coloured QR codes – green, yellow and red.
In Beijing, the mini-program can be accessed both through Alipay and Tencent’s ubiquitous app WeChat. Users can obtain their codes by entering their name, national identity number and registering with facial recognition.

A green code shows the user is not under quarantine and can move around the city freely, but those with yellow and red codes need to quarantine themselves at home or undergo supervised quarantine respectively. The status of users’ colour codes is refreshed at midnight daily.
The programme would allow foreigners to check on their colour status using documentation aside from Chinese identification numbers “as soon as possible”.

As central and provincial governments push to gather and analyse a large amount of data to help contain the spread of the disease, privacy and data security concerns have been mounting.
The colour-based system, which determines the user’s quarantine status based on factors like travel history, duration of time spent in an outbreak-stricken area and relationships to potential carriers of the virus, has also been criticised for lacking transparency, with reports of people being marked incorrectly in Hangzhou, and authorities admitting that “some” ratings are not accurate.

China’s national government service platform also separately launched a QR code system via WeChat last week that allows users to register their information and generate a code to show their health condition.

China targets travellers at its borders in strategy change to stop coronavirus spread

New confusion in Beijing. Who is exempted from the 14 days quarantine?
Again, see here the official rules in Chinese and in English:
200221 BJquarantine
200223 BJquarantine

But then things are not clear at all. See the “new” update from Beijing:
200303 enteringChina

And also the SCMP article:
“People leaving or entering China will be checked for symptoms, contact with infected persons or travel from areas with a high number of infections.”
1 March 2020
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3053091/china-targets-travellers-its-borders-strategy-change-stop

It says:
China will step up monitoring of the health of travellers entering and leaving the country in a change of strategy to stop the international spread of the coronavirus as the number of cases in other countries surges, the central government said on Sunday.
With the number of new domestic cases falling, the announcement indicates a widening in Beijing’s anti-virus strategy to include a focus on preventing contagion between countries.
In response to the rising threat from the spread of the virus overseas, all travellers who enter or leave China will now have to fill out a detailed health declaration.

Officers would scrutinise health declarations and whether visitors showed any symptoms or had been to an outbreak area in the previous 14 days.
It said all visitors who passed through customs would have their health form checked, their temperatures taken twice and their travel history examined.
Those who show symptoms, come from countries or areas with serious outbreaks or have been in close contact with confirmed or suspected virus cases will be subject to strict medical examinations and possibly laboratory tests.

Any person confirmed with or suspected of having the disease, anybody who had close contact with confirmed cases and any passenger with symptoms would be isolated for medical observation.
The National Immigration Administration’s (NIA) top priority was to stop contagion from overseas epidemic sources and it had stepped up efforts to prevent “imported infections”.
The NIA will report passengers coming from countries and areas with serious coronavirus outbreaks to customs officials. They will also notify relevant authorities at their port of arrival to undertake specific epidemic prevention measures for these passengers.

Conclusion:
As always not clear. The keys are:
– which countries or areas with serious outbreaks? Is Germany one? Belgium safe?
– if any “sick person” in your plane, you are doomed.