I live in Beijing and came back early Feb after the new year holiday. We’re doing all that stuff too, even the single use tissue in the elevators.

The day after I got back we found out we had a case of covid-19 in our apartment block, so we were one of the first to get restricted entry/exit — each unit gets 2 cards and you have to present it when you enter or leave through the single open gate. I did 2 weeks going outside just twice to buy food, then slowly relaxed a bit. Many of my chinese friends are still basically not going out at all.

Now’s an exciting time for China because we’re at basically zero new cases in the country (had 4 new ones in Hubei yesterday, the rest were all retournees from outside the country). So since yesterday, it’s mandatory hotel quarantine for everyone who enters the country.

Really getting worried for my family and friends in the states though. Gonna have some long talks about how to prepare.

It's not clear to me whether the no-new-cases in China is real, temporary or biased sampling. Lockdown is a temporary measure to prevent any new infections is betting that something will change (vaccine, season-related drop in R0). It can't go on forever without destroying the economy. Do you think it's reasonable to trust reports of no new cases? Is the sense that is just "no new symptomatic cases that get reported officially", or really none? I find it difficult to believe that there can be no new cases in a vast country where almost everyone is susceptible, but perhaps I underestimate the degree of lockdown.

This is a really interesting video. I'm not sure how accurately it represents the situation on the ground in China, of course. But the video shows a society with temperature checks at every place of business, a location-tracking system, an isolation system, and a number of other precautions.

It's a picture of a society on a war footing, certainly. But people aren't locked in their apartments, and the hospital system isn't collapsing under its own weight.

So far, this is the most optimistic answer I've seen to "What comes after total lockdown but before a vaccine?"

People actually were locked in their apartment compounds for about a month, at least in Beijing.