China finally learns to live with the coronavirus and on social networks no one is ashamed to say they have covid-19. Before it was a taboo subject.
For a long time people hid having contracted the coronavirus. Even patients who made a full recovery found themselves socially isolated and discriminated against in their search for employment, since the strict “zero covid” policy reignedin force for almost three years.
But last week the authorities reversed themselves by lifting most of the health restrictions, in particular the almost mandatory PCR tests several times a week and closing the quarantine centers for all people positive for the virus.
Immediately, a wave of cases swept across the country, and testing positive for covid became commonplace and assumed.
“On the third day of my return to the office, I tested positive,” a Beijing resident tells Xiaohongshu, the Chinese version of Instagram, posting a photo of her antigenic test marked with two red bars.
“I have a fever,” writes another Internet user, while similar posts on social networks have numbered in the thousands for a week.
Also in Xiaohongshu, the influential Beijinger “Mm”, known for sharing her luxury purchases online, did not hesitate to let her subscribers know that she too had covid.
“It’s not too scary, you just have to adapt and drink more water,” he advises, listing all his symptoms, along with a photo of a bouquet of roses.
The virus is safe, authorities say
Recipes for home treatments, of dubious scientific efficacy, also went viral.
One recommends salt-steamed oranges to soothe a sore throat, while another advocates eating canned yellow peaches, a traditional treatment for sick Chinese children.
This pushes the state media to warn the population against grandma’s recipes against the virus.
Celebrities and public figures also publicly announced their contagionsuch as real estate magnate Wang Shi, who explained to his 22 million subscribers last week that he was “an asymptomatic case.”
On the internet, memes about the wave of cases are multiplying. “Before it was buy vegetables and prepare to be confined. Now it is buy medicines and prepare for fever,” highlights a post shared hundreds of times on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter.
The change in tone online reflects the new discourse of the last days of the authorities and the state mediawho claim the virus is safe, after having claimed otherwise for nearly three years.
But China is still not prepared to face a sharp increase in covid cases, while millions of older people are still not fully vaccinated against a highly contagious omicron variant.
But sharing your experience as a coronavirus patient can also have negative consequences.
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This week Chinese journalist Lv Ziyuan posted a video showing her being treated at a hospital despite suffering from mild symptoms. Netizens yelled at the scandal, considering that she was abusing the scarce resources of the health system.
The phrase “Lv Ziyuan should leave his hospital bed” quickly went viral on Weibo, before being censored.
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