Welcome to The Plague Pit

For this issue – number 18 – I’m delighted to feature a genuinely unusual take on COVID-19. Angel Chen has been in China during the pandemic.

Angel is a Lower Sixth student in St. Swithun’s School, Winchester. She has been studying in the UK for five years. Her aspiration is to study medicine and become a doctor.

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In this article, I will be writing about the link between technology and COVID-19 in China and how Chinese people are trying to go back to their normal life.

When the Coronavirus outbreak started in January, the Chinese government introduced rules to prevent the spread of the virus. This included locking down Wuhan, quarantine, and limiting travel between provinces. It seems that communication between individuals has relied highly on technology. My family didn’t get the chance to see each other during the Chinese spring festival, instead, they chose to use video calls as a way of communication.

But this isn’t the point I want to make. Other than family communication, technology played an important role in monitoring and controlling the spread of the virus during this difficult time.

QR code was invented by a Japanese inventor Masahiro Hara in 1994. Around 2015, many Chinese technology companies introduced QR code for transactions, because using a QR code is much more efficient and convenient. This soon becomes a trend in China, almost everyone who owns a phone knows how to use the QR code.

After the outbreak began, to monitor the travel history of a citizen, everyone was given a QR code. This code links with your ID and any other identification documents, therefore all your traveling details will be recorded. This is for finding any close contact with an infected patient to stop the further spread of the virus. There are three different types of code: red, yellow, and green.

Red indicates you are undergoing quarantine or you are already diagnosed with COVID-19. Yellow shows you have been in high-risk city or area for the past 14 days and should consider quarantine or self-isolation. Green means you weren’t in any high-risk area for the past 14 days. Only the people who hold a green code can go to public areas such as offices and shops. The code updates every second.

For me, after I arrived in China, my code was yellow. During my quarantine the code was red. As soon as my quarantine finished the code turned green. Same for the patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19, their code will be red until the testing shows negative for at least three times. Then they will be allowed home just like the others.

Here is a little story of my own.

\When I was going to a hospital to see my dentist, I found there was a queue outside the hospital. People were waiting to show their QR code so they were allowed in. After 15 minutes of waiting, I presented my green code and the nurse took my temperature. She also asked me whether I had been in any high-risk area for the past 14 days, I said no, then she let me in.

The first thing my dentist asked me to do is to scan a QR code, the website showed my trace for the past 14 days. All the cities I went to and all the planes or trains I took was on the page. This confirmed I hadn’t been in any high-risk area.

This is just one example of how technology was used to help trace transmission during the pandemic. As the situation is improving every day in China, one day these QR codes will no longer be needed.