Our 小区 are giving free Covid-19 testing. They just swap the back of your throat. They scan your QR code and then after that do the testing. It take less than 20 seconds. Ha.Ha.
You get the results the next day (I suppose). I've been doing a lot of walking and notice this happening in many 'xiao qu'. I'm still waiting for the text message about 'foreigners
getting the booster shot. My wife had it 3 days ago.
We live in a rural area - they initially refused our third booster shot saying we had to contact the "government" in the provincial capital. When I asked whom to contact - there was a blank look. The issue is that the initial two booster shots for foreigners were free, but the government decided that foreigners should pay for the third booster shot.
We were completely willing to pay - but the rural village we live in only provides shots to people with insurance (YiBao). Fortunately, we live in a rural village and there's a government office specifically set up to help rural villagers navigate bureaucracy - they walked us through the insurance system and voila - we're now foreigners with social insurance (usually but not always you get it through your employer)...and the third booster shot was done the next day - with only minor grumbling.
YiBao (for us) is about ¥300 a year. 1.4 billion people...(not all covered). Not too shabby. The USA should quit the NIMBY and take a good hard look at social responsibility programs in other countries.
NIMBY - not in my backyard...
Now...how to get our green code and link it to our vaccinations...
I have the green code after my vaccination but now it says 'you're over so and so days of your booster shot'. I'm still waiting for a text message from the government to get my 'booster' shot. They are so unorganized. Nobody knows anything. Ha.Ha.
I received SMS today, which my wife translated to state that if I don't go get the free test (like today or something), my health code will automatically change to yellow, and then there will be more trouble. So I went to get the free swap.
But it was pure luck that I even checked the SMS - I get too much spam to bother translating every message.
@michael2015:
You got 3 _booster_ shots already? Or do you mean 3rd shot overall?
I'm sure he meant 2 shots plus the booster shot. Ha. Ha.
Getting that third shot (1st booster) may further reduce risks of more severe symptomatic complications for family members and yourself in light of the current Omnicron and Delta surge. Lets hope Kunming City Gov. reopens that booster vaccination channel at Calmette for foreigners, if not lift restrictions at local community health centers for expats. Not just coercing us for testing.
Yesterday's nationwide new daily cases as reported by NHC have soared to 5,370 (symptomatic: 3,602; asymptomatic: 1,768).
+20K active covid cases.
Besides the health codes mentioned above, the other circled green up arrow transport tracking code (aka 通信行程卡), which is often used at HSR stations or airports, may be showing an asterisk symbol for those who've been in Kunming (for at least four hours) within the past 14 days.
This * symbol after ("云南省昆明市*") denotes a medium to high risk area. This may or may not present a problem when traveling intra or inter-province. Not sure.
I received that ominous SMS as well.
JanJal, be sure to get two negative nucleic acid tests within three days. Try to stay at home and away from others. You may have recently been in the 800-meter vicinity of higher risk individuals or areas.
