Covid Stupidity Won’t Go Away

The lockdown may have stopped in Shanghai, but the covid stupidity is far from done.

Just today, the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival Long Weekend, I had an experience that made me swear.

There is a Burger King,near the Xi Shan apartment, that I can drive to and pick up food.  It was convenient: I could park underneath the plaza containing the Burger King and from the parking garage I could take some stairs to get to the Burger King and after come down and leave the garage without any hassle.

But it was too convenient and of course bureaucracy had to find a way to ruin it.  The last two times I went to the plaza, I had to show a security guard a Covid QR code to get into the parking garage, only to find the stairwell blocked so that I had to find another way to get to the Burger King.

Today, I went to the Burger King and the covid process had me cursing.  I had to show a QR code to a guard.  That was the enjoyable part of the process because I use my old and slow iPhone 6 to show my code.  So slow is the phone that it takes a minute to produce a code which annoys the gatekeepers all to heck.  After parking in the garage, I took the elevator to the first floor of the plaza, where there is a mall, only to find that the Burger King could not be accessed from the mall  I was cursing because the entrance to the Burger King from the mall was closed as was another nearby door, and so I had to take a long way around to get to the Burger King.  When I got to the Burger King, I had to show a QR code to a BK staff member who had to man the door.  And when I finally got my food, I had to take a long way around again and show a QR code for a third time so I could get to the car.

At least they didn't hassle me about not wearing a mask.  As I say, I'm no maskhole.