Jiangning is not in lockdown, but it might as well be. The District found 23 positive cases of COVID yesterday, while Qinhuai District reported one more this morning. It may be 200 short of the total of 235 cases Nanjing saw last summer, but authorities are still going all out to stop Omicron in its tracks.
Yes, those eerie announcements are back, reminding us that we are in an “epidemic situation”. They are grim reminders of the calling for the populous to have an NAT every second day, for almost the next 2 weeks. However, The Nanjinger has heard reports that some residential communities in Jiangning are requiring tests every day.
Across the city, all schools today joined with Jiangning and Qinhuai districts in closing their doors to students and moving to online learning. Gyms and beauty parlours, doctors and dentists; all have been shuttered, together with most other recreational places with significant numbers of people. And with Tomb Sweeping Day approaching, on 5 April, that includes cemeteries and various other human-ashes-related locations.
On the bright side, most shops remain open, although some have changed their operating hours. Popular foreign bakery, Skyways, for example, now has their Jiangning store open only from 10:00 to 19:00, until further notice. Evening street food stalls have been culled to the minimum.
On public transport, news of closures on Nanjing’s metro came yesterday afternoon, with the announcement that Line S6 shall, as of today, no longer cross the city border to Jurong and instead terminate at Quandu Da Jie. But then today, the system was shut down across Jiangning. That means trains on Line 1 and Line 3 now terminate at Nanjing South Railway Station.
Line S7, which skirts Jiangning out of Nanjing South has also been shut down, while in Pukou District, Line S8 operations have also been curtailed, with its northern terminus now at Fangzhou Guangchang.
On the buses, operations on a total of 29 bus routes between Jiangning and Nanjing as a whole have been suspended.
As to our borders with the wider world, anyone seeking to leave Nanjing is now required to hold a negative NAT certificate.
Still with transportation, that one of the positive cases out of Jiangning was a ride-hailing taxi driver has prompted authorities to investigate his colleagues, reports The Paper.
Provincial-level officers yesterday conducted spot checks on drivers for six major taxi companies, including Didi and Nanjing operator, T3, in Nanjing, Xuzhou, Yancheng, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang.
The three major issues discovered are not surprising; drivers not wearing masks, passengers not wearing masks and drivers not reminding them, and drivers not checking passengers’ health codes.
It’s all really a bit of a case of been there, done that, got the t-shirt.