The Inevitable Return of COVID-19

Is China Finally Facing a Second Wave?

I’ve mentioned before how fortunate we’ve been, at least in Shanghai, when it comes to the pandemic; we had a strict lock-down for a while at the beginning of last year, but by the time summer rolled around, life was pretty much back to normal. The only deviation from business as usual was face mask requirements on the metro and a very small number of other places.

Seeing how quickly COVID-19 spread around the world at the beginning and middle of last year, combined with the lack of visible precautions taken, it seemed like only a matter of time before the virus broke out in China on a far wider scale than the first time around.

It’s taken a lot longer than I expected, but with events escalating over the last few weeks, there are clear signs that somewhere behind the scenes the outlook is starting to look markedly worse. This may well just be planning for the worst-case scenario, but people in the know are already getting ready for another lock-down.

Two weeks ago, my manager sent out a guide to working from home, so that everyone could familiarise themselves with it in advance. This week, HR notified everyone that the company was reintroducing compulsory mask-wearing in the office, with immediate effect, for the first time in over half a year.

Throw in regular announcements of new “medium and high risk” areas around the country (mostly in the Northeast for whatever reason but also in downtown Shanghai), and it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll be working from home at some point before or after the Spring Festival holiday.

Last year, it was during Spring Festival when things really took off; each year tens or even hundreds of millions of people travel across the country during the chunyun period. Despite talk of restricting transport due to the as then still recent outbreak, the government chose to allow people to travel as normal, undoubtedly adding to the spread of the virus.

By the time the Spring Festival ended, cases were being reported in all major cities (or near enough all major cities) and lock-downs and restrictions of varying degrees of severity were imposed across the nation.

Despite warnings from individual companies to avoid travel this year, there seems to be no official restrictions in place just yet, and so even if there are no major outbreaks during the festival, I wouldn’t be surprised if companies choose to tell their employees to work from home for the first few weeks after the holiday ends, purely as a precaution. Especially as outbreaks take time to identify.

In fact, some companies, including the one my wife works for, have already closed their offices where possible, and so Nhung has been working from home for a fortnight already. Her employer seems to be one of a small minority, but it could well be a sign of things to come.

As for me, I wouldn’t mind working from home again. I’d miss the gym and being able to see my colleagues, for sure, but in all honesty I feel like I’m suffering a little from burnout and could do with a few weeks away from the office, even if still working, to recharge my batteries and recover a bit of that drive for learning and self-improvement that was with me for much of last year.