Test runs have started of the new Lijiang Sightseeing Train. See:
www.chinadaily.com.cn/[...]
This is not new. Combined testing has been the norm in all this mass testing. If your batch receives a positive you get an orange code and you have to go for an individual test. These tests are not at the same place so you don’t queue with the general public.
These combination testing is not geared to see if you as an individual have Covid but to see if there is any Covid in the community at large. Combined testing is thus done if it is expected that there is no Covid.
For the period I have some official data, that was September 25 to 28, 6.54 million tests were done in Kunming and all were negative. That means that still 654 thousand batches had to be analysed. Some 220 thousand per day so it is still an enormous operation.
The benefit of combined testing is cost saving. You can get an individual test as well but they cost 16 kuai.
So be happy that there is combined testing because basically it means that there is no Covid.
For the official report quoted above see:
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rJh3WDDDdJXzAGrzLy55-A
@livinginchina
The zero covid policy is not to have zero covid but aimed at reducing the impact of Covid. If it is the right policy or not I cannot say, I am not an epidemiologist, but what is known is that the Chinese vaccines efficiency rate combined with in certain area and groups low vaccination rate cannot give herd immunity to protect all.
I am double vaccinated and boosted but that already quite some time ago and with vaccines modelled at the than prevalent strains of Covid. That means basically that I and the rest of China are not prepared, vaccine wise, for the onslaught of Omicron. The result of that would be an overwhelmed health care system that would collapse.
The whole idea of pandemic control is to avoid the collapse of the healthcare system. China till now could avoid a collapse because it could draw health workers from other parts of China that were not affected. If Omicron goes on a stampede this would not be possible anymore. You have to realise that in other countries Omicron had a limited death rate because all the vulnerable people had already died of earlier strains of Covid.
Indeed forever zero covid is not possible but the aim is to buy time to develop Omicron specific boosters that will dampen the impact of epidemic covid in China.
More elephant news:
www.chinadaily.com.cn/[...]
@ livinginchina @ bubbliyan
They have rapid tests if you go to a place that has them and pay for it.
I got results twice of a free, combined, test within 5 hours.
You have to understand that these free test are not directly for the benefit of you as a private individual but for the health authorities to keep a picture of what is going on in the community at large. Also they are a free service to you if you have the results within the period that you need it.
No results found.
Yunnan county cooks the books for $850 million
Posted byMan bites dog is news. Dog bites man is not news.
Books are cooked is no news. Books are not cooked is news.
Landslide closes Tiger Leaping Gorge to traffic
Posted byThis is the parking place of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Looks like it happened at night because during the day this parking is full of cars and busses. The road is on the left of the picture and must be closed off as well. Clearing this will take some time because one cannot push the debris just over the edge because there is the Tiger Leaping Gorge itself. Might be nice to have a second big stone laying in the middle of the stream but that rock is bit too large to move in one piece.
As usual in reports in the local press the numbers are wrong. The big rock in the middle alone is 30 cubic meters (compared to the buildings in the back). The debris must be chopped up and even blasted to smaller pieces and then carted off. Pity that these horrible plaster murals on the hillside have not been destroyed.
Recipe: Yunnan-style sweet and sour ribs
Posted byCilantro = Coriander
US non-profit Sanford Health eyes Kunming
Posted byInteresting aricle in HealthlandTime.
healthland.time.com/[...]
Gives a good idea about what non-profit means in the USA.
Snapshot: Lugu Lake
Posted byI don't know when you went to Luguhu but the road between Lijiang and Lugu has improved enormously over the last few years and the new road between Lugu lake and Ninglang has been completed and is now one of the best roads in Yunnan. From there the road is the old road to Lijiang and a bit congested at certain spots. Indeed just outside Lijiang the road is a total mess because of road-works. The old road is completely destroyed by heavy trucks here going between the cement works and Lijiang (A common problem in China; modern trucks can carry more load then the road have been designed and build for and therefore destroy the roads).
I travelled this road earlier this month and it took me 5 hours to cover the Lugu Lake / Lijiang distance. Once the road works have been completed it might take 4 hours. That is half the time it took me in 2009.
Travelling from Xichang in Sichuan still takes a full day and from Chengdu I would do it in two days. (Many road improvement works here as well.).
Your statement that "the Sichuan side was much less developed than the opposite shore" I cannot agree with. On the contrary: Apart from Luoshui (The only village at the lake) the Yunnan side has hardly been touched by tourism while the Sichuan side has seen rapid touristic development.
One of the nice things of Lugu lake is/was that it is less over-run by tourists. Something that spoiled it for me in Lijiang and Shangri-La. A new airport will hasten the process of it becoming one more of the "shopping mall" tourist towns like Lijiang. Already now I noticed that more and more local business women (The local Mosuo culture is matrilineal and this mend that most shops, restaurants and hotels were owned and run by women) have been replaced by outsiders (Mostly Sichuan businessmen) and that part of the atmosphere has gone.
Note as well that the area has an access fee of 80 RMB per person.