The Chinese city that introduced health codes wants to track drinking and smoking

A proposal from the Hangzhou government would have post-pandemic health codes assess lifestyle habits like exercising and medical checkups

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People in Wuhan scan a QR code at Wuhan's Hankou Railway Station to bring up their health codes on April 8 as travel restrictions for leaving the city are lifted. (Picture: Reuters)

Published: 5:00am, 26 May 2020Updated: 5:24am, 26 May 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Health codes were introduced in Hangzhou to help combat the spread of Covid-19. But now it looks like the codes might outlive the virus, with city residents being scored and ranked based on their health status, according to a proposal by local government officials.

Since February, people in cities across China have been assigned QR codes on their smartphones that come in either red, yellow or green. Each color is supposed to indicate the likelihood someone had contact with the new coronavirus, with a green code letting someone travel freely and yellow and red codes indicating people must quarantine for up to two weeks. The codes are based on a combination of big data and user-submitted information that includes travel history and whether someone has experienced symptoms.

The Hangzhou government is now looking at taking things further by including things like smoking and drinking habits. In a meeting held by the Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission last Friday, local officials proposed an upgraded health code system that integrates data from medical records, physical examinations and “lifestyle management”.

Hangzhou’s design for a new health code system uses a color gradient that correlates with 1 to 100 points. (Picture: Hangzhou Municipal Health Commission)

According to pictures in the Hangzhou government’s press release, new health codes will rely on lifestyle-related data like how much a person drinks, smokes and exercises every day. It’s not clear how these would be assessed, but if the existing health code system is any indication, it could be based on user-submitted information.

In what looks like a simulated picture of the proposed system, a user would get five points for walking 15,000 steps in a day and get one point for sleeping 7.5 hours. But they would lose a point and a half for drinking 200 milliliters (7oz) of baijiu, a popular fiery Chinese liquor, and lose three points for smoking five cigarettes.