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@hats
Suzhou (city next to Shanghai) announced today that businesses won't reopen (after Chinese New Year) until 8 February. Expecting something similar from Shanghai soon. Everything in Shanghai is closed until further notice, I'm so freaking glad I'm on holiday in the UK right now as it sounds boring as hell, plus also quite worrying...
Very very hard to say (from reading both western and Chinese media) what the real story is. I read a report on the virus by one of the virologists who worked on SARS, and it hasn't struck fear into my heart - yet, and things could change. Part of the giant lockdown could well be individual city/provincial governments wanting to impress the higher ups (this is a major factor in mainland Chinese goings on). Stories of 100s of people in hospitals having IV drips don't go on to say that this is a daily occurrence in China, where there's no primary health care and people believe in a) shitty TCM and b) IV drips solving everything. But then... All the figures released by China are almost certainly false.
Taiwan has banned Chinese tourists (which is kind of funny as China banned most tourists from going there last year), HK so far resisting closing the border.
Re: masks... In Shanghai at least, Chinese people wear them when they're sick, foreigners wear them for pollution. I'm stocking up on masks while I'm in the UK. Before I left SH on Friday I'd worn a mask all week, though obvs handwashing is much much much more effective and something that not enough people (globally, but specifically in China) do.