China’s QR health code system brings relief for some… and new problems
A color-coded QR code system to fight the coronavirus allows people to travel freely or forces them to self-quarantine
China is set to soon assign citizens QR codes that will indicate whether they’re at risk of contracting the new coronavirus and need to self-quarantine. Millions of people in Hangzhou, the city southwest of Shanghai where this system has already started, have effectively been guinea pigs for the new system that some people say has introduced both solutions and new problems for life during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The coronavirus has upended life in China, and a hodgepodge of policies from different organisations has made it difficult for people to get around cities. The new QR code system is meant to ease this pain point by helping people easily show whether they’re at risk or not. But some people, like Hangzhou resident Kaikai Shi, have doubts about how well the system achieves its goal.
“The assessment is inaccurate as far as I can tell,” Shi said. “If someone from a severely afflicted area fills in the wrong info, he or she gets a green code. But if someone in Hangzhou, who has never been in touch with people from an afflicted area, fills in that he or she has a sore throat, a red code returns.”
But Shi also says his new green health code has made it easier for him to be out and about, showing the uneven impact of a system assessing people through opaque algorithms that few people understand.
