One recent afternoon, four medical personnel in hazmat suits loitered outside my apartment building in Shanghai. As they stood there, a man holding a speaker strolled past playing a recorded message that ordered, “Wear a mask, stay indoors, wash your hands.”
Despite China’s efforts to recast itself as a sanctuary from COVID-19 while cases soar across the U.S. and Europe, fallout from the pandemic lingers here, long after the rate of infections has stabilized. Everyone arriving from another country or province must undergo 14 days of quarantine, either at home or a government facility. Central heating is banned in offices for fear of spreading germs. Taxi drivers hang sheets of plastic inside their cabs to cocoon themselves from passengers. One friend in Beijing returned to work to find the receptionist dressed in a white hazmat suit.
Life has not gone back to normal, or anything like it. Grabbing noodles with my wife means sitting diagonally across a four-person table to comply with social- distancing rules. A routine appointment with my lawyer had to be held in Starbucks as her office had banned visitors. The barista chastised her for standing within four feet of me while witnessing me signing documents.