Days L19-21: A Friend Tests Positive
Jen lives a few blocks away from me and she did the compound covid PCR tests like everyone else. About 36 hours later she got a result called 'under review' and showed this to me. I had never seen this before and didn't know what it meant. She then did a rapid antigen test by herself and got the positive result. Two days later she did another test and it came out negative, along with another compound PCR test.
From this little bit of data we learned that Jen had most likely contracted a mild dose of covid then recovered quickly with little to no symptoms. Either that or the previous tests were both false positives but this is highly unlikely given that she got two negatives after.
We also learned that it takes days for the bureaucracy to track and deal with positive cases, showing how it simply can't keep up with Omicron. By the time people like Jen are forcibly removed from their homes, they are already negative.
Well no wonder people freak out when their results don't come back on time. My wife explained it this way, it's like taking a stressful exam every day and waiting for the results.
My friend Jen was in precisely this situation when she essentially cleared a mild case, tested negative after a few more days, and was still taken from her apartment in the middle of the night.
Kind and caring friends suggested that Jen try to get a final goodnight sleep but that wasn't to be when at 2:50am the bus pulled up. She was ordered to leave most of her stuff on the street since the bus wasn't leaving for awhile and she needed to use the bathroom and head back inside the compound
She then said to her boss, "I need a mental health day tomorrow." Well no shit.
The bus moved about 2km after waiting all night. It was trying to round up more and more people.
Jen relayed, "I have no clue what's going on. I'm so tired and my battery is running low. My extra phone battery is in the luggage under the bus." As it turns out, it was around 7am when she actually got into the facility.
This was in fact surprising, because another Italian expat had been bounced back and forth multiple times. The facility wouldn't take him because they didn't want foreigners to see or experience these kind of conditions. This guy asked his captors, "What about Chinese people? Don't they have a say in the whole matter?" Clearly we know the answer to that.
That question earned him a bus ride back to his apartment where they tried to lobby for home quarantine, but the piece of shit curmudgeon residents in his compound all got together and rallied against his case. He was bounced back to the quarantine centers. Eventually they found a VIP room for him. My friend Jen was not so lucky.
Jen said, "There is no room. It's like an unfinished building with cots. It's terrible." We later tried to comfort her online and she then said, "People are OK here and tried to calm me down when I was calling the Embassy as they heard me crying. The Chinese [cleaning staff] were trying to say it's ok and not to be afraid. I am unsure if I cried out of exhaustion or shock. Slept a little bit, will also try to get my boss' help. I just want them to move me at least to somewhere I can work."
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Jen wasn't kidding about the half-finished building because an earlier report showed water leaking through the roofs of another hastily built facility when the storm happened last week. It's not the full rainy season yet, but it soon will be in mid June. If the lockdown goes into that season then we're all doomed.
What happened next with Jen we didn't find out. She got on the phone with her Embassy but they could do very little. I tried wirh mine too, Canada can't do shit to help their citizens nor can anyone's Embassy for that matter. Best hope is to stay covid negative or if you end up getting sent to those facilities, try to ride it out with good humor as best as possible. That is if you can. Most people get discharged after a week or so.
As scary and maddening as Jen's story is, it's by no means unique. Cases like these are happening in the thousands every day. The vast majority have already tested negative in the facilities and are on the road to recovery. As Jen asks perfectly well, "How do they expect people to heal in these places?"
There is a conclusion to the story. Once the lockdown ended, Jen made a total break from Shanghai and completely severed the connection after many years as an expat. She was one of many thousands who did this. Jen later went to sojourn and recover in Thailand, specifically Koh Samui and Pai, and started a new life.
Unfortunately I lost much contact with her. Married life will do that when you have, or used to have female friends. All I know is that she's doing super well as of late and has found a way past this trauma. She also found love while traveling in Thailand which is truly heartwarming to hear about.
Her story is quite the inspiration and definitely worth learning from. What is clear from the whole thing now looking back two years later is there is absolutely no excuse for the inhumanity she and others went through. Yet she found a way to heal as per her own words.
Sorry to say it, but fuck China. If they can do this kind of stuff in an "emergency" then there's no telling what they could do in the future. The only way to really heal from the trauma is to leave China like she did. I will do so also, it's just unfortunately going to take a little longer given my situation.
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