China
New Year’s greetings in the subway app cause corona panic in Shanghai
The Shanghai Metro has the longest subway network in China
© Long Wei / Costfoto / Picture Alliance
The sight of their subway ticket shocked some passengers on the Shanghai subway. The code was colored red for the Chinese New Year – this otherwise stands for a corona infection.
China celebrates the New Year: On February 1st, the year of the tiger began in China. For this occasion, the operators of the subway in Shanghai had come up with something special. The QR codes, which are considered digital tickets in the metropolis, were temporarily displayed in red instead of black. However, the celebratory design caused a lot of unrest among many residents of the city of 25 million.
Because red QR codes have been triggering one association among the Chinese for a good two years now: they stand for a positive corona test. In China, from where the corona virus spread throughout the world, residents are assigned a so-called “health code” using an app. Green stands for healthy and full freedom of movement, yellow for one week quarantine, a red code indicates a corona infection and two weeks quarantine.
Corona pandemic: Chinese cities have to go into lockdown because of a few cases
Accordingly, the color change in the Metro app caused some users to panic, reports CNN. “When I saw it this morning, I thought my health status had turned red,” wrote a user on Chinese social media platform Weibo. “When I left the station, I thought about life for a long time. I thought I would be locked up now.”
Corona infections can have drastic consequences in China. As part of its zero-Covid policy, the country is putting entire cities in a tough lockdown because of individual cases. In many places, the authorities are reacting with curfews, mass tests, contact tracing and forced quarantine. Especially before the Winter Olympics, which start in Beijing on Friday, the government wants to get the virus under control by all means. In the city of Xi’an, for example, there was a food crisis during the lockdown, with the population no longer being supplied with food. The lockdown was only lifted after a month.
Metro in Shanghai clarifies
However, the people in Shanghai could breathe a sigh of relief: the subway company announced that the red QR code had nothing to do with health status. He was only supposed to “create a festive atmosphere”. The codes are now displayed in black again as usual.
Red is traditionally considered the New Year’s color in China because it represents joy, happiness and prosperity. At the beginning of the year, people decorate their houses and dress in red. However, the pandemic has changed perception: the color now apparently signals danger for most Chinese: inside.
Source: CNN