Beijing in the bubble of the virus and the Olympics – Gabriele Battaglia

The place where I live in Beijing according to the current language is sanduo shequ, that is, a residential community of the “three many”. It means there are many intellectuals, many retired officials, many elderly people. It is an agglomeration of buildings built in the mid-eighties, which occupies a perimeter area of ​​220 thousand square meters, with different entrances that are open or closed depending on the level of alarm with respect to the epidemic.

Between those with resident status and those who are a “floating population” (liudong renkou), i.e. migrant (for statistical purposes, I too fall into this category), 8,816 people live here. Making a quick calculation, the density corresponds to 40 thousand inhabitants per square kilometer. It is roughly the same as Dhaka and Manila, which are considered the highest density cities in the world. However, the vertical development of the 18-storey building frees up space at street level and makes it possible to proclaim that 40 percent of Liufang Nanli – this is the name of the complex – is destined for greenery.

In this model community that looks a bit like a village but is typically urban, the party committee (shequ dangwei), in which grim old men preserve “socialist values” (so it is written in an article dedicated to us – forgive the identification – which appeared in Sohu last June) and “under whose guidance” “a think tank of senior officials, a mutual aid society for residents, a choir, a dance group, a Peking Opera troupe, a painting and calligraphy class, an accordion ensemble and other cultural initiatives ”.

During the toughest months of the epidemic, in early 2020, the party committee coordinated all formal (such as the residents’ committee and administration) and informal (youth group, senior group) to oversee community entrances, isolate any positives, ensure supply to residents. In 2021, instead, he launched the campaign “Be a pioneer in epidemic prevention and control, lead by example in house cleaning”, in which teams of volunteers essentially cleaned the corridors and stairways of buildings, which are usually abandoned. in a desolating state of neglect, and they did their utmost to separate waste collection, the great news that stirred up the whole residential community. They gave the example.

With the approach of the Winter Olympics and the general alarm for the appearance of the omicron variant also in China and above all in Beijing, the basic organization of my community of the “three many” has reactivated, mobilization has started and above all building doors, in the foyer or inside the elevators, a notice from the residents’ committee appeared on January 23 saying, “We need a nucleic acid test today!” It was necessary to go to the community in front of ours – “equip yourself with a mask and identity card” – and line up in front of tents similar to those of a military field hospital, from which an attendant all wrapped up in a white jumpsuit, mask , glasses and transparent visor did the test through a window.

Since I only became aware of the warning the next day, I wrote a message to the manager of the residential community asking him how I could do it. First he told me to go and do it the next day at noon; then he corrected himself by saying that it was already the second test lap (they got it into their heads to do it to everyone by repeating it every 2-3 days), so I had to wait for the first lap to restart; after which, while I was somewhere else in the city, he wrote me to go immediately because a slot had opened.

Like all things socialist and Chinese, the mass mobilization of my residential community, “under the leadership of the Party committee”, is a bit timely and a bit chabuduo (at best), however always solemn. And in the end, a solution is found anyway.

Closed circuit management
Multiply this system by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residential communities throughout Beijing, and you will have an idea of ​​the fervor that animates the capital in which, to guarantee Olympic peace, “the people’s struggle against the coronavirus“, a slogan that went for the largest in 2020. The fact is that in the last 15 days cases of the omicron variant have been discovered in the western district of Haidian and in the southern district of Fengtai and the municipality has ordered the mass swab in those areas. But since when the order starts, the competition to see who is most zealous among the various committees also begins, here is that all the communities of the metropolis of 23 million inhabitants order the test.

It was January 25th and I finally had my tampon done. On January 26, the Beijing electronic tracking system went haywire from overload and no one could ever verify if it was negative or positive. On the 27th it was restored. I’m negative, waiting for the next test.

Then there are them, those inside the Olympic bubble, the parallel world or, more correctly, the “closed circuit management”: athletes, companions, journalists, for an estimated total of eleven thousand people, that is not too many more than the my residential community. Except that they swab every day, there is no escape.

A few days ago it became known that 72 positives had already emerged in that cosmopolitan and at the same time circumscribed universe. The authorities immediately made it clear that such a number falls within the expected margins. Here in China, no one really claims to have zero cases, but to “aim for zero”; which means that as soon as you discover a positive you send it to one of the covid hospitals – so called – that surround the Olympic bubble.

If by chance he is already infected when he disembarks from the charter that took him to China, even those who were sitting up to two rows in front of and behind him end up in hospital. A reporter from a large television network dedicated to sports told me that his expedition has adopted a strategy: suppose you take four cameramen to China; on the plane you make them sit very far from each other, so you don’t risk running out of them. Ditto for all the other functions. It almost seems like a tactic of approaching enemy trenches: if a sniper kills my machine gunner, I must have someone alive and well to replace him.

No public
Royal measurements alternate with urban legends. For example, I was told this morning that all non-Beijing taxi drivers were sent home. The logic of such a measure is not very clear to me: do they want to hunt as far as possible workers who are constantly in contact with other people and who could therefore become infected and infect with the aggravating circumstance of carrying the virus for a walk around the city? Or do they want to discourage the Pekingese from wandering around? Or both? And if quite simply the non-Pekingese taxi drivers, like every year, had returned home for the Chinese New Year (February 1)? I haven’t had a chance to verify it yet. The fact is that last night I went out with a friend who, unlike myself, did not have a bicycle. At the end of the evening, I waited with him for a few minutes for him to find a taxi, without success, then he said “go ahead”. This morning, he wrote me that he managed to get home after an hour and a half.

As for the relationship between the two bubbles – the Olympic one and the one called China – the streets of Beijing have been equipped with a preferential lane for the vehicles of the organizing committee of the games and a closed-circuit transport system has been established between the different locations where the competitions are held: Beijing city, Yanqing district and Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.

Each vehicle is a small self-propelled bubble, an aquarium separated from the outside world where athletes and companions play the role of goldfish. If unfortunately some non-Olympic motorist has an accident with an Olympic van, all those involved must remain locked up in their respective cockpits until the police arrive; once the investigations are over, the agents will communicate the outcome to the two parties, who will continue to remain locked up; at that point, they will be able to leave, always without leaving the cockpit and hoping at this point that both vehicles will be able to move away on their own wheels; anyone who dares to get out of their means of transport will be quarantined for 21 days.

Already last September it was announced that tickets to attend the games’ competitions would be sold only to residents of China (both Chinese and foreign), no foreigners, nothing Beijing huaanying nin – Beijing welcomes you – like at the time of the 2008 Olympics. In recent days, as soon as the first case of omicron was registered on home soil, it was announced that no coupons will be offered for sale, only by invitation. However, it has been known for some time that work to develop the online ticketing platform had been suspended at least eight months ago, so no paying public was expected.

Shortly, the foreign ministry office that deals with the foreign press sent me, with a message on WeChat, an invitation to attend an Olympic competition of my choice. The fact is that even if I belong to a chosen category, as a foreign journalist residing in China, the invitation specified that I should only “attend”, not “work”, I’m not a colleague inside the bubble. Since I am in this country with a journalistic visa, I feel very chosen category, whether they invite me to the Olympic competitions or give me priority for the third dose of the vaccine, whether they prevent me from going to Tibet, force me to escort me while I am. on vacation or I break the boxes in some remote village. For the record, I chose the downhill. If that’s not possible, the ice hockey final. I am curious to see if and how I will physically approach the venue of the sporting event, which is inside the bubble while I am outside it, like two sets that do not intersect. Cross the border.

After a couple of days, another message on WeChat warned me that there may be problems to watch alpine skiing, because Yanqing – where the competitions take place – “is far away”. In exchange for my almost nuanced downhill, the ministry offers us four alternatives, all inevitably in Beijing city: short track, speed skating (male), curling (male too), figure skating (individual female). I have no choice, they don’t interest me, at this point I play the single bet and I hope they find a way to get me to the distant Yanqing (85 kilometers) or that they give me the emotions of the hockey final.

The feeling is that they want to lock up the Pekingese in Beijing, especially if foreigners and journalists. But there is still time: from here to the start of the games, on February 4th, the situation could change another five or six times, maybe at the last second they even offer you to be a torchbearer. You just have to sit back and wait. The Olympics and everything around it will be an ongoing process until a minute after their end.