fortune--2020-05-04--Inside the earliest days of CNN and the birth of 24-hour cable news

It’s impossible now—in the always-on universe in which we dwell—to imagine a time before news was instantly available to the casual consumer.
It’s also impossible—during this pandemic—to imagine life before Zoom calls and FaceTime from the privacy of your living room.
Only a few short decades ago, innovations like cable, satellites, portable cameras, microwave trucks, and videotape were just beginning to dawn. And in the hands of a small group of broadcasters and journalists, this technology made it possible to launch the first 24-hour news network.
Cable News Network debuted on June 1, 1980, in just over a million homes. Few imagined that the rogue yachtsman Ted Turner, who’d discovered “cable before cable was cool” by beaming his UHF station in Atlanta around the nation, could possibly compete with the almighty three networks—which commanded an audience of more than 40 million people for their nightly news.
What would possibly fill the time? Would they have to blow things up?
In 1987, an event occurred underscoring that there was, indeed, a populist appetite for news. While the explosion of the shuttle Challenger the year before helped the network gain acceptance, it was the story of a little girl in Texas that yielded CNN’s highest ratings to date. Baby Jessica’s plight was eerily similar to that of a little girl in California 40 years earlier, a drama that had been the basis for the very first television news live shot. This modern drama had a happier ending.
What follows is an excerpt from my book, Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News.
Lisa Napoli is an author and journalist who has worked for the New York Times, Marketplace, MSNBC, and NPR member station KCRW, in Southern California. Courtesy of Abrams Press
It happened in an instant on a hot October morning in a yard in Midland, Texas, as the kids played and the world pulsed with dramas great and small. Cissy McClure had stepped inside the white frame house on Tanner Drive to answer the phone. When she returned, her eighteen-month-old daughter, Jessica, had vanished. The girl’s playmates gestured frantically near the opening of an eight-inch hole in the ground—the little girl had fallen into an abandoned well. “I was only gone for five minutes,” the incredulous mother said. “I was only gone for five minutes.”
In Texas oil country, mobilizing a skilled rescue operation didn’t take long, but diamond-tipped pneumatic drill bits were no match for the fortress of hard rock surrounding Jessica. Digging a tunnel parallel to the well, and then across to it, would not be easy or quick, even once workmen unleashed a custom auger bit and the rathole rig they nicknamed “Green Machine.” From the sheer vibration of a backhoe, the trapped girl plummeted farther, from eight feet down to 22.
Local press arrived soon after. Kids didn’t fall into wells every day in Midland. The television cameraman from KMID lowered a microphone into the shaft that allowed Jessica’s parents to talk to their trapped child. One minute, the girl was crying. The next minute, she was sweetly singing nursery rhymes.
“How does a kitten go?” one of the rescue workers asked.
“Meow,” came the response. She was alive, and they were going to get her.
Thanks to KMID’s new microwave truck, the only one in town, the station had an advantage over the other locals as the ordeal dragged on: Two reporters took turns filing live updates from the scene to the Midland audience. Soon, six satellite news-gathering trucks from bigger, better-funded television markets barreled into town. These more powerful beasts allowed reporters to trumpet news far beyond the region. The network of affiliates created by Jane Maxwell years earlier made it easy for CNN to pick up the phone and ask for the story.
As word spread across the vast, interconnected, global village, a snarl of media from everywhere descended on West Texas. Dozens of photographers perched like hawks on ladders they’d brought or borrowed from the neighbors, angling for the money shot. Surely it was just a matter of time before Jessica was plucked from beneath the earth.
Stock markets all over the globe were fumbling precipitously, and would crash just a few days later. The nation awaited a Senate vote on a polarizing conservative Supreme Court nominee. An Iranian missile struck a U.S. tanker in Kuwait. Scandals roiled the next year’s presidential election, with candidates Gary Hart and Joe Biden bowing out after, respectively, a shameful discovery and a series of gaffes. First Lady Nancy Reagan, making headlines because of a breast cancer diagnosis, delayed a biopsy so she—like the rest of an anxious world—could track the story that trumped all other concerns: the fate of baby Jessica.
In the year 1987, half the United States was now wired for cable, with 40 million sets equipped to receive CNN. Just as networks were beginning to scale back their international bureaus and rethinking the limo-and-Learjet mindset that had long propelled them, the network formerly derided as Chicken Noodle News was expanding—from 300 to 1,500 people, spread across 18 bureaus around the world. The fact that CNN spent a third as much money to produce exponentially more hours of news was turning long-established news-gathering conventions upside down. Profits for the network had been on the rise—projected for this year to total more than $60 million.
In Atlanta, CNN needed so much more space it had traded headquarters in a former Jewish country club in midtown for a failed indoor amusement park, featuring the world’s longest escalator, inside a tired high-rise hotel complex downtown. Bunky Helfrich’s crew retrofit the place to the tune of $30 million. There was even a movie theater, where Ted could play his jewel in the crown, the newly acquired film, his favorite, Gone With the Wind.
This fortress-like building seemed more secure than the Tara on Techwood; here, Ted’s office had been wired with controls to operate the network should terrorists attack. Gone, though, were the two quaintest quirks of the old space: the overhead thuds of wrestling that startled newsroom employees during the weekend matches, and the chance to run into Ted in his bathrobe in the break room in the middle of the night.
For anyone who didn’t know that he “was cable when cable wasn’t cool,” Ted commissioned a twangy country music song to trumpet the message. An accompanying music video was taped late one night. Those who’d been around for his ascent remembered that the Turner empire traced its roots back to billboards, onto which he also plastered this “cool” campaign.
Ted could sing that he was cool to his heart’s content, but by 1987, his baby wasn’t entirely his any longer. Earlier in the year, he’d sold a 37% chunk of his empire to a group of cable companies in exchange for $560 million and their executives’ say in how Turner Broadcasting was run. It was that, or risk sinking under the nearly $2 billion in debt he’d acquired to finance the purchase of historic movie studio MGM. That deal had been universally regarded as bonkers, with Ted selling back the studio to its wily owner, Kirk Kerkorian, months later, while holding on to the blue-chip film library that later became the basis for Turner Network Television. After years of risky moves and deals where he’d managed, improbably, to emerge triumphant, this time he’d come perilously close to being crushed.
Even when things didn’t work out for Ted, oh, how far he’d traveled from the days of the baseball nose push and the Super Bad Party Ring and groveling to viewers to please lend him a couple of bucks. Now he haggled with the titans of media. He’d risen, improbably, to titan status, too. Before MGM, there’d been his failed takeover of the “whorehouse,” CBS; after, a brief flirtation with the media mogul from Australia, Rupert Murdoch, who’d just planted a flag on the U.S. television landscape with his purchase of seven independent stations and his own movie studio investment, 20th Century Fox. Gannett’s Al Neuharth had designs on the Turner empire, but Ted refused to sell, especially to the dinosaur newspaper business. Later, he deflected NBC’s parent company, GE, and Jack Welch.
He’d even moved on in his personal life, finally, mercifully, divorcing Janie. For a while, he took up with his 30-year-old private pilot—titans need not fly coach, as Ted had bragged for years he loved to do—and eventually attracted the affections of the ultimate symbol of success: a movie star. Jane Fonda knew a thing or two about the spoils of early technology adoption. While Ted was conquering the cable landscape, she’d been raking in a fortune, early in the VCR revolution, by peddling exercise tapes.
The win/loss column mostly balanced, even if Ted’s books didn’t. His Cable Music Channel failed after a month, and he sold out to MTV; not long after, he picked up Westinghouse’s Satellite News Channel, the competitor that inspired him to start Headline News. The Goodwill Games, his attempt to do the Olympics one better, had lost him $26 million, but he thoroughly believed it a worthy investment that underscored his personal involvement in hastening the end of the Cold War. (It also got him an in with the Russians.) You could almost believe Ted when he insisted his motivational force was not money. Bridging the divide was his forte. Who else could claim friendship with archconservative Senator Jesse Helms and communist Fidel Castro—whom he and CNN host Liz Wickersham had returned to visit again in 1983? (The promotional spot they’d taped with him back in 1982 had never made it to air, vetoed by Ted’s shocked employees, who refused to buckle to his insistence it air—but the stuffed ducks were still prominently displayed in his office, a totem of his globalist transformation.)
Aside from the cast of characters and the theatrics, his most enduring legacy had been in upending the conventional order of the television universe and the news business.
“They are watching us in Moscow right now, in Havana, in London,” Ted bragged as deal after intoxicating deal was signed to beam CNN around the globe—Canada, Australia, Japan, Mexico, China. (In more restrictive countries, of course, the channel was off-limits to all but its ruling elite, confined for the most part to their offices and tourist hotels.) “Within the next three years, virtually every leader in the world will be watching CNN with a satellite receiver.”
Indeed, the same potent cocktail of satellites and cable television that had put Ted on the map was currently wreaking havoc in every corner of the planet. Governments accustomed to controlling television were yielding to commercial newcomers as well as the incursion of “cultural imperialists” like Ted. But it wasn’t American culture Ted was hoping to sell. It was some vast, ineffable promise to save the world.
“I’m trying to get bigger, so I’ll have more influence. It’s almost like a religious fervor,” he said. He still muttered, from time to time, that he should run for President. “My main concern is to be a benefit to the world, to build up a global communications system that helps humanity come together, to control population, to stop the arms race, to preserve our environment. We’re steaming at 30 knots on the Titanic, trying to break the transatlantic record on an iceberg-strewn sea. We’re out of control, we’ve got to get in control.”
Could television help the world steady its course, to coalesce and transform? Or was it, indeed, a pernicious anesthetic, the Hitler of its time, a destructive force worse than cigarettes that, Ted believed, had turned the American populace “lazy, drugs, homosexuals, sex maniacs, materialists, disrespectful”? Ted, the television magnate who despised television, couldn’t seem to make peace with the fact that, after all these years, it was a bit of both.
***
As the rescue of baby Jessica dragged on, the weary local crew kept vigil, afraid to duck out for bathroom or meal breaks lest they miss the money shot. Even though these stations typically signed off the air each night, there was no question they’d staff the switchboard and stay on the air all night for this.
From the new news mission control in downtown Atlanta, CNN producers decided the story was big enough to merit sending their own crew to Midland, rather than continue piggybacking off affiliate feeds. CNN’s Dallas bureau chief, Tony Clark, found himself knocking on doors of surrounding homes, hoping to borrow both a phone and a ladder. Though technology had progressed far enough that images from Midland could be beamed live around the world, a hardline phone was still necessary to call back to the newsroom.
A kid plus distress equaled timeless drama. Clark and many of his colleagues hadn’t worked at the network back in June 1981, when CNN founding president Reese Schonfeld picked up a satellite feed from Italy, where efforts had been underway to free a 2-year-old boy trapped in a well near Rome.
As for Schonfeld, he could only view this latest human-interest circus from a distance. He’d been gone from CNN for five years now, since May 1982.
The new book Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News (Abrams Press), by Lisa Napoli, will be published on May 12, 2020. Interested readers can preorder copies now.
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fortune--2020-05-04--Trump is pushing for a “conclusive” report linking COVID-19 to Wuhan lab

The cofounders of startup Magic Spoon on breaking into a food industry dominated by legacy players

U.S. President Donald Trump promised a “conclusive” report on the Chinese origins of the coronavirus outbreak, showing relations between the world’s biggest economies are set to remain rocky at least until the next election six months from now.
Trump pledged the report Sunday in a “virtual town hall” with Fox News, in which he added that he had little doubt that Beijing misled the world about the scale and risk of the disease. Earlier, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said “enormous evidence” shows the Covid-19 outbreak began in a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, without providing evidence to support his claims.
“We’re going to be giving a very strong report as to exactly what we think happened. And I think it will be very conclusive,” Trump said in response to a question about the lab. “My opinion is they made a mistake. They tried to cover it. They tried to put it out, just like a fire.”
American and Chinese officials have been trading charges for weeks as the U.S. became one of the countries hardest hit by the disease. Trump has been ratcheting up efforts to paint China as the villain, as the U.S. economy drifts into recession and the president’s handling of the crisis boosts support for the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.
The dispute has complicated efforts to mount a global response to the virus, with U.S. officials emphasizing Chinese responsibility for failing to stop its spread. The spat also renewed fears that the “phase one” trade deal reached by both sides in January won’t be enough to prevent their relationship from becoming increasingly confrontational.
“The Trump administration’s singular focus on holding China to account for its role in the pandemic scuttles any remaining chance that the U.S. and China will hit pause on their strategic competition ahead of the election,” said Ashley Townshend, director of foreign policy and defense at the University of Sydney’s U.S. Studies Centre. “The election may well become a referendum on which candidate — Trump or Biden — is most trusted to be tough on China.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, a public holiday in Beijing.
Although China has avoided criticizing Trump by name, the foreign ministry last Thursday accused some U.S. officials of trying “to shift their own responsibility for their poor handling of the epidemic to others.” Chinese state media also released an animated video mocking the speed of the U.S.’s response to the outbreak.
Although China has reprimanded Wuhan police for punishing doctors who sounded early warnings about the disease and replaced local officials responsible for the initial outbreak, Beijing says its response has been open and transparent. China’s foreign ministry has cited Trump’s tweets praising Xi’s handling of the outbreak as evidence of U.S. satisfaction with its response.
The White House’s deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger, is scheduled to speak on the U.S. relationship with China Monday in a online seminar hosted by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. Pottinger’s remarks will champion democracy and freedom in China and won’t directly address intelligence on the virus, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Pottinger will deliver part of his remarks in Mandarin, the person said, calling it a first for a senior U.S. official.
Earlier Sunday, the Associated Press reported that U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the outbreak, in part, to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to the virus. Pompeo separately told ABC’s “This Week” that there was “a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”
“These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,” Pompeo said.
Xi Praise
While the Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying bat-borne coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19 at the time of the first known outbreak nearby, there has so far been no evidence showing it possessed the previously unknown strain. Yuan Zhiming, director of the facility’s high-security Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, said last month that “there is absolutely no way that the virus originated from our institute.”
Pompeo stopped short of alleging that the virus was man-made, saying he had “no reason to” disagree with a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that ruled out genetic modification of the pathogen. Pompeo declined to say whether China intentionally released the virus.
In the town hall event Sunday, Trump passed up an opportunity to directly criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling him a “strong” leader who he struck a trade deal with just as the outbreak was spreading.
“I’m not going to say anything,” Trump said. “I had a very good relationship with him.”
–With assistance from Steve Geimann, Anna Waters and Nick Wadhams.
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fortune--2020-05-04--Facing a swift economic collapse, Europe slowly reopens the economy

The daily death toll from the coronavirus fell in the U.K. and Italy as political leaders wrestled with how to ease the restrictions that have strangled their economies without sparking a new wave of infections.
The U.K. reported 315 deaths from Covid-19, down from the 621 confirmed yesterday, bringing the total to 28,446, the third-most in the world. Italy’s toll was 174, the fewest since its national lockdown was imposed on March 10. Spain’s 164 fatalities were the lowest in more than six weeks, Germany’s 76 new deaths were the fewest since March 31 and France reported 135, the fewest since March 22.
While the U.K. isn’t set to unwind the lockdown and an Observer poll showed two-thirds opposed lifting it, the government says the peak of the outbreak has passed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preparing guidance for the next steps of the crisis, including whether employees need to wear protective equipment and how transport should be used.
“It’s definitely not going to be business as usual, but we do want to make sure that people understand where the route map lies,” Transport Minister Grant Shapps said on Sky News on Sunday.
Johnson, who was himself hospitalized with the coronavirus, told the Sun newspaper Sunday that his condition was so serious his doctors were planning for the worst. “The bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe,” the premier said. “It was a tough old moment, I won’t deny it. They had a strategy to deal with a ‘death of Stalin’-type scenario.”
Meantime, political leaders in Spain and Italy are confronting a crisis that has morphed into one involving economic life and death.
The euro-area economy could shrink as much as 12% this year and fail to return to its pre-coronavirus size until the end of 2022, the European Central Bank said last week. The report is the latest to show how early predictions of a strong rebound in the second half of the year have given way to uncertainty over the timing of the recovery, as countries plot different paths to ease lockdowns.
“I’m not sure what will be left,” said Alberto Visentini, whose sporting goods store near Milan’s Central Station has been shut since early March. Visentini, 61, had originally been told he could reopen March 25.
The economic paralysis is adding pressure on leaders to find a way to ease restrictions as government struggle to prop up businesses that are dormant because of the lockdowns. In Italy, where rules are slowly being lifted, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte apologized for delays in distributing financial aid and pushed back against criticism, especially in the industrial north, that he’s being too cautious.
“There is disappointment among many economic operators,” Conte told La Stampa. “I understand them, but to restart the economic cycle of goods and services that are less essential we need customers to feel safe and protected.”
In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces a parliamentary vote this week on extending the state of emergency that began March 14. Measures to further ease Europe’s strictest lockdown start on May 4 and will proceed in stages, depending on local pandemic data. Sanchez said yesterday that the Spanish economy, which is driven by tourism, would likely contract more than 9% this year.
Four islands, three in the Canaries and one in the Balearics, will be the first areas allowed to open restaurants, bars, hotels and stores. Spain’s government has also said the use of masks will be mandatory on public transport as of Monday. This weekend, the government allowed people out of their homes to exercise and walk for the first time under the lockdown.
Germany, which reported less than 100 new deaths on Sunday, will allow playgrounds, zoos, museums and churches to reopen, but will maintain travel restrictions and most other curbs on public life. Chancellor Angela Merkel said a broader easing of the country’s lockdown will be evaluated on May 6.
In the U.K. the government, is due to give an update on its lockdown on May 7. The administration is examining whether it could relax the two-meter social distancing rule, which could allow more businesses and schools to reopen, The Daily Telegraph reported today. The Sun paper, meanwhile, reported that the U.K. could begin relaxing restrictions on May 26.
Johnson’s government has been attacked by opposition politicians for what they describe as series of missteps since the crisis began to unfold. His administration didn’t stockpile enough medical kit when the outbreak began in China, allowed mass sports gatherings to continue and schools open for too long and didn’t lock down the economy quickly, they say.
Moreover, Johnson abandoned the testing and tracing strategy, which the World Health Organization says should be the “backbone” of the global response, on March 12 after cases outstripped testing capacity and officials conceded the pandemic could no longer be contained.
The U.K. is now working to develop a program to test track and trace contacts that’s seen as vital to containing the virus as the country comes out of lockdown. Similar systems are credited with reducing the pandemic’s spread in countries including South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has cautioned that, while the first phase of the outbreak is over, there remains “a very long way to run” in the fight against the virus. That means the need to track the spread of the disease will be critical to lifting movement restrictions in a way that avoids a second peak.
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fortune--2020-05-04--The cofounders of startup Magic Spoon on breaking into a food industry dominated by legacy players

Trump is pushing for a “ conclusive ” report linking COVID-19 to Wuhan lab

This is an installment in a special series, Startup Year One, interviewing startup founders about the major lessons they learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
No more bagels on the way to work. No more doughnuts in the office. No more lines at the coffee-store chain for a stale muffin.
For employees working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire day looks very different now—starting with breakfast. If mornings are frantic—as they are wont to be—adults, especially those with kids, might find themselves reaching for whatever’s easiest, including sugary cereal.
But if Trix was for kids, then Magic Spoon is for adults. This isn’t a plain white box with block lettering and flavorless flakes inside. Cofounded by Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz, Magic Spoon is meant to be a guilt-free option. The colorful, illustrated boxes, as beautiful as they might be, might call to mind some other cereals filled with artificial flavors. But Magic Spoon is a high-protein, low-carb cereal with zero grams of sugar. And in celebration of its one-year anniversary, Magic Spoon is releasing a special Birthday Cake flavor, which is not quite eating cake for breakfast, but it might be the next best (or at least healthier) option.
Those colorful boxes serve another purpose in the social media age: Magic Spoon has gained 10 times the number of Instagram followers as legacy cereal brands, made possible with posts from celebrity fans such as Amy Schumer, Questlove, and Chrissy Teigen.
Fortune recently spoke with Lewis and Sewitz to learn more about their first year in business, the lessons they’ve learned, the hurdles they’ve overcome, and their plans for the next year.
This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Magic Spoon cofounders Gabi Lewis (left) and Greg Sewitz. Courtesy of Magic Spoon
Fortune: Direct-to-consumer cereal, for adults, doesn’t seem like the most obvious space to disrupt or launch a new business in. What inspired the launch of Magic Spoon?
Lewis: We both grew up loving cereal, eating a bowl every morning. It was a time-honored tradition from our childhood, but as we got older, we cut cereal out of our lives completely. It just didn’t evolve with us as consumers and, quite frankly, is pretty terrible for you. We started chasing this idea, “What if we could re-create everything we loved about cereal as kids, but without all the junk ingredients?”
And so we started experimenting with different formulations to see if it was possible to mimic the taste and texture of “traditional” cereal, without all the bad stuff. Once we cracked the product, we got to work on building the brand, filtering everything through the lens of creating a childlike cereal for grownups. We wanted to bring fun back to the morning routine, help people embrace their inner child, and spark a moment of joy at the beginning of the day.
We were also motivated by this idea that consumers shouldn’t have to choose between healthy and delicious. Every time you go to the market, and this is especially true in the cereal aisle, there is a huge visual disparity between all the healthy and the junk food. All the unhealthy cereal has bold, bright pops of color, exciting designs, lovable characters. Meanwhile, the so-called healthy options have bland, muted, and dull packaging. Just because a product is healthy does not mean it has to be boring. There’s no need for this tradeoff. Why not have healthy and fun? So we set on a course to create a brand and product where healthy, playful and delicious could all coexist.
Sewitz: Magic Spoon was actually the second company we started together, so we already had the benefit of navigating the CPG [consumer packaged goods] world once before. Gabi and I met in college and launched our first business, Exo, during our senior year at Brown University. After Exo, we always knew we wanted to continue working together, but we didn’t know what was next. When the light bulb went off about Magic Spoon, we knew we were onto something. We had the experience to get it started and knew we had to be extremely innovative in our approach in order to compete in the cereal aisle.
We thought there had to be a ton of people in our shoes who loved cereal but had stopped eating it—i.e., millennials like us with a health-conscious mindset; parents who wanted a better option to feed their kids; people on specialized diets, et cetera. It wasn’t enough to bring something new to the table for them, we needed a novel way for how to break through. We chose a direct-to-consumer model which has been extremely valuable in helping us quickly scale and expand. We bypassed the traditional cereal aisle entirely and have proved the viability and appetite for this new way of shopping for cereal over the last year.
Magic Spoon’s initial four options: fruity, frosted, cocoa, and blueberry. Courtesy of Magic Spoon
Beyond tapping into dietary trends like grain-free and keto-friendly, how has technology shaped the development of Magic Spoon, whether it be the influence of big data or social media?
Lewis: Since day one, social media has been instrumental in building our brand. In particular, we’ve worked closely with influencers to generate word of mouth, buzz, and legitimacy for what we’re doing. Influencer marketing has gotten a bad reputation lately because consumers can see through it when influencers are insincere about the products they’re promoting, and it feels just like a money grab. But the intention behind influencer marketing holds up—in its purest form, it’s people with circles of influence who are authentically sharing things they love with others. We can get behind this, in our own way. We never pay influencers, so if you see them talking about our brand, it’s because they genuinely want to. In fact, half of our first round of financing was made up of health and wellness influencers who believed in our product so passionately, they wanted to get very involved.
Sewitz: We make sure that if anyone comments on our posts, we respond to each one. Our feedback loop has played an integral role in shaping the brand. And while technology has undoubtedly helped accelerate our brand, we’ve also taken some pretty low-tech approaches too. We will set time aside in our day to cold-call customers and ask for feedback. You’d be surprised how many people are ready and willing to tell you everything on their mind about their cereal experience—and probably caught a little off guard to hear from a founder of the company.
What were some of the biggest hurdles you faced in the last year? What surprised you the most?
Sewitz: Getting the right ingredient formulations in the first place was definitely the biggest challenge. But if it was easy, someone else would have done it! We set out to create flavors and textures that tasted just as delicious as the sugary junk we loved as kids, but without all the bad stuff. We were meticulous in R&D and continue to refine our flavor and nutritional profile.
Lewis: When we first launched the brand last April, we thought we had made enough inventory to last several months. But we actually sold out of the product within just a few weeks. Of course that’s a good problem to have, but it was still very challenging at the time, especially as a small team with endless people writing in about not being able to purchase even though they want to. And then when we launched our first limited-edition flavors, it happened again. Learning how much product to make, how quickly we can sell through it, and how often we need to place more orders while keeping our cash flow in check has definitely been a learning curve.
What kind of feedback have you received from your customers, and have you (or will you) apply that feedback to how you sell your products in the future?
Sewitz: When we first launched the brand, we made an educated guess as to what would resonate with customers most. We led with our high-protein, low-carb nutritional profile to plant a flag in the ground and make this one of our key differentiators. Through focus groups, social media conversation, and cold-calling customers, we gathered insights into what brand attributes mattered most. We learned that consumers really valued how we created Magic Spoon without all the sugar of the legacy cereal brands they grew up with, but that it still had to taste incredibly flavorful.
We applied this feedback by updating our packaging to reflect zero grams of sugar in a big nutritional callout on the front of the box. We also increased the size of the high-protein and low-carb callouts on the box to draw attention to this trifecta of important nutritional qualities.
Magic Spoon’s new Birthday Cake cereal Courtesy of Magic Spoon
Obviously, amid the coronavirus pandemic, consumers’ purchasing habits, practices, and even their relationship to food is going to change. How does Magic Spoon plan to adjust and fit into whatever this new normal might be?
Lewis: We feel incredibly fortunate that as a shelf-stable food brand delivering to people’s homes, we haven’t experienced the same devastation that so many other industries have. And in fact we’ve seen an uptick in demand across the board—both from new customers who are discovering Magic Spoon for the first time, and existing customers who are simply eating more cereal as they’re staying home. It’s hard to predict what tomorrow’s new normal will be, but we’ve certainly seen a shift in how people shop for food, and the trend towards digital grocery taking over is accelerating.
Looking beyond the post-pandemic era, which could be anywhere from a year to a few years from now, how do you plan to grow Magic Spoon, and what do you want the business to look like five years from now?
Lewis: Our long-term plan is very similar to our short-term plan: keep making delicious cereal that looks and tastes like people remember, without the junk. We have lots of exciting new flavors in the pipeline, but don’t plan to expand product categories beyond cereal given the size of the market and how much there is to do.
In terms of distribution, eventually we do plan to be everywhere and anywhere that cereal is bought and consumed, so expansion beyond DTC [direct to consumer] will happen at some point, but for the time being we’re very focused on just selling online.
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—These dry ciders are made like wine and packaged like beer
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—File your taxes, get a free case of Natty Light
—WATCH: Can San Francisco Be Saved?
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-05-04--Global markets sink as U.S.-China tensions over coronavirus worsen

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Good morning. It’s looking like a down start to the week as sinking U.S.-China tensions unnerve investors. Equities and oil are trading lower.
Let’s take a closer look.
Markets update
Asia
The major indices were all in the red in afternoon trade, led by Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Japan’s Nikkei . The Shanghai exchange is closed for a long holiday weekend.
in afternoon trade, led by Hong Kong’s and Japan’s . The Shanghai exchange is closed for a long holiday weekend. Hong Kong reported on Sunday a positive milestone: 14 straight days of no new local coronavirus infections.
reported on Sunday a positive milestone: of no new local coronavirus infections. That was drowned out by President Trump . His latest assertion that China’s “horrible mistake” is to blame for the outbreak is spooking investors. He’s promising a conclusive report linking the deadly outbreak to a Wuhan lab.
. His latest assertion that China’s “horrible mistake” is to blame for the outbreak is spooking investors. He’s promising linking the deadly outbreak to a Wuhan lab. Saudi stocks tanked to start the week, closing down more than 7% on Sunday after the country’s finance minister warned tough austerity measures were in the works to rebalance the oil giant’s finances.
to start the week, closing down more than on Sunday after the country’s finance minister warned tough austerity measures were in the works to rebalance the oil giant’s finances. Saudi Aramco fell more than 5% on Sunday. It’s down about 15% from its December IPO.
Europe
European bourses sunk out of the gates this morning. At the open, Germany’s DAX was down nearly 3% in the first half-hour of trade.
bourses sunk out of the gates this morning. At the open, was down nearly in the first half-hour of trade. The great staged reopening of Europe continues this morning, but that’s doing nothing to lift stocks. This comes after France, Italy, Germany and Spain reported significantly improved coronavirus infection and death tolls over the weekend.
continues this morning, but that’s doing nothing to lift stocks. This comes after and reported significantly and over the weekend. Air France-KLM this morning won approval for a €7 billion aid package while Deutsche Lufthansa is closer to cinching €10 billion in aid.
this morning won approval for a aid package while is closer to cinching in aid. Some good news now… Swiss pharma giant Roche announced on Sunday it had won U.S. FDA approval for a coronavirus antibody test. Its shares were up a tick in early trade.
U.S.
The Dow , S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures point to a weak open , extending Friday’s losses. The S&P closed Friday down 3.7% .
, and futures point to a , extending Friday’s losses. The S&P closed Friday down . On Saturday, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway hosted its annual shareholder event to a near-empty auditorium in Omaha. Q1 was particularly brutal. The company reported a loss of $49.7 billion . Yes, billion with a B.
to a near-empty auditorium in Omaha. Q1 was particularly brutal. The company reported a loss of . Yes, billion with a B. What’s on tap this week? Expect more wrangling over small business aid as Congress gets back to business today. On Friday, the April jobs report comes out. Spoiler alert: it will be ugly.
as Congress gets back to business today. On Friday, the comes out. Spoiler alert: it will be ugly. Earnings season isn’t over. Disney, General Motors and Tyson Foods all report.
Elsewhere
Gold is up, as is the dollar .
is up, as is the . Like stocks, crude is falling on the U.S.-China tensions. WTI futures had been nearing $20/barrel, but are sinking. Brent is down over 2%.
Stay away?
Some of the more superstitious investors out there get an uneasy feeling whenever the calendar flips to May. There’s an old expression that goes something like: “sell in May, and go away.” The basic gist is that if there’s a low season to equities-trading it would be from May through October, the so-called slow summer months. The November to April “winter” stretch, meanwhile, is when volumes (and gains) pick up.
There’s some data to back up this observation. If you go back 70 years you can see a pattern in which stocks perform better in the winter period. If you think this hypothesis comes across as a dump of data with no clear cause-effect rationale, you’re not alone.
But still, veteran traders like to trot it out this time of year. And on cue, the good people at LPL Research sent me a note saying why the old adage should be retired. Here’s their analysis, in a handy chart they put together.
As you can see, since 2012, equities have performed well in the May-October timeframe. Just once, in 2015, did the index fall into the red. And just barely.
Does that mean we should scrap the saying once and for all? Not so fast. Equities sank significantly on Friday, and are pointing down again today. And even LPL is wondering if we can extend the strong May-October run in 2020, saying, after the April bull run “a well-deserved break could be perfectly warranted.”
But, there’s the “other hand” argument too. “With the dual benefits of record monetary and fiscal stimulus helping to bridge those most impacted by COVID-19, we continue to expect this recession to be one of the shortest on record and a much stronger economy later in 2020,” LPL Financial Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick says.
So what will it be: dive in and make some trades, or stay away until the autumn?
***
Postscript
It’s May 4, a day we in Italy have long ago circled on our calendars. Beginning today, Europe’s longest running lockdown will ease slightly so that a selection of businesses can reopen. It’s expected that one-quarter of the country’s workforce will return to their offices, factories and shops today; further gradual phase-ins are planned for two weeks hence, and again in early June.
Last night, health officials reported a steep decline in new COVID-19 cases and deaths, which adds a bit of reassurance to the notion that now is as good a time as any to reopen.
But what most everyone here is talking about is the restrictions that remain on visiting friends and family. Under the rules, we cannot visit my in-laws as that would require crossing the regional border of Lazio into Umbria. And we cannot visit friends, regardless of where they live. But—and this is a big win for Italian lovers—you are permitted to visit your fiancé (as long as you carry the proper completed forms, downloadable from the Ministry of Love’s website.)
But even this concession is generating all kinds of fuss among Italians. Why fiancé and not, say, my football mates? And what about about a new lover? Does she count? Why should the financé get special visiting rights?
Legally, the fiancé is not family. Yet. But surely the fiancé has a higher standing than your soccer pals, the government seems to be saying. There’s a lot riding on this. If you get busted for an unauthorized visit, the fines can be steep.
Into this debate stepped prime minister Giuseppe Conte, a former law professor. He declared last week what to him sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation. The fiancé, like family, are to be defined as “congiunti.” And starting today you can stop by your favorite congiunti and say hello (a mask is highly recommended). Wait, the congiunti? Who the heck are they? The government had to clarify that congiunti are blood relations and “stable, non-familial relations.”
Wait, WHAT? That sounds so specifically vague it could include everyone from my trusty mechanic to the friends I usually go cycling with. They’re as stable as anyone I know.
The term congiunto (singular) has long puzzled me. You see it on forms all the time. It literally translates to conjoined or conjoint, suggesting these are relations that are so close we share a femur. There really is not an equivalent legal term English that I’m aware of.
Maybe the Ministry of Stable Relations will post a helpful FAQ on the website—or more likely respond with an even fuzzier explanation.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
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Today's reads
Jumbo debt. When Boeing announced on Friday it had raised $25 billion in a mammoth bond sale it added a lot of zeroes to its debt load. The platemaker now has more debt than this nation. Hint: okay, it's New Zealand, the Washington Post reports, citing Bank of America. If I were more clever here's where I'd insert an All Blacks reference.
Too high imo. If you're not following Elon Musk on Twitter you may have missed what may go down as one of the most expensive tweets of all time. In a moment of brutal honesty, the Tesla CEO on Friday blurted out that he thinks the share price of TSLA is too high. Investors promptly dumped the stock in morning trade; it closed Friday down 10%. One incredulous Twitter user seemed to be reading the minds of everyone when he asked Musk, "are you high?"
Think stocks beat bonds every time? Think again. In his weekly column, The New York Times' Jeff Sommer ran the numbers and found that over the past 20 years, several different classes of bonds have outperformed the S&P 500—in some cases by a lot. His analysis didn't surprise me. The data did, however.
Market candy
I just decided that I’d made a mistake.
That was Warren Buffett admitting his airline investment strategy had backfired. Again. Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday reported $54.5 billion in Q1 investment losses (the conglomerate's overall losses were better, at $49.7 billion). As a result, Buffett & co. dumped its holdings in Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines Group and United Airlines Holdings. "The airline business — and I may be wrong, and I hope I’m wrong — but I think it, it changed in a very major way," he later noted.


fortune--2020-05-04--J. Crew files for bankruptcy as pandemic crushes struggling sales

J. Crew Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy, unable to revive flagging sales of its preppy clothing line amid the coronavirus pandemic and crushed by debt rooted in a long-ago leveraged buyout.
The retail chain had obligations of almost $1.7 billion as of Feb. 1. The bankruptcy petition was submitted to the U.S. Eastern District of Virginia.
J. Crew agreed with a majority of creditors to convert $1.65 billion of debt into equity, and secured $400 million of new money from funds including Anchorage Capital Group, GSO Capital Partners and Davidson Kempner Capital Management, the company said on statement on Monday.
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy would allow J. Crew to stay in business, cut its borrowings and close weak stores to minimize costs. Normally that would include keeping the doors open for its J. Crew and Madewell stores, but sales at those outlets vanished when the coronavirus forced shoppers to stay home and nonessential businesses to shut.
Even before the virus spread, the company was struggling because shoppers were defecting to online merchants and consumer tastes were changing. J. Crew had been trying to rebound from some fashion misses and complaints of poor-quality clothing.
Asset Shuffle
The company managed to sidestep default once before in 2017, with a financial overhaul that included shuffling assets in a way that moved fast-growing Madewell out of reach of creditors.
The change did little to reverse the company’s fortunes, but it irked creditors and turned J. Crew’s name into a synonym on Wall Street for lopsided debt deals that leave lenders with weaker claims on company assets.
J. Crew was relying on an initial public offering of Madewell to raise capital and ease its heavy debt load, a legacy of the 2011 leveraged buyout by current owners TPG Capital LP and Leonard Green & Partners LP. The turmoil in financial markets put an end to that option.
The company operated 182 J. Crew-branded stores, 140 Madewell stores and 170 factory stores as of March 2, according to recent filings.
The case is J. Crew Virginia Inc., 20-32180, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Eastern Virginia.
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—How luxury fashion shopping habits are shifting during the coronavirus pandemic
—Vending machines—the original contactless delivery—now deliver ramen and art
—Restaurants are converting their spaces into retail stores to ride out the pandemic
—The outdoor industry’s crucial spring season will be its most challenging in years
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: The ugly toll COVID-19 has taken on retail
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-05-04--Introducing The Rebuild Program—a project to help small businesses reopen amid a pandemic

Our battle with the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, but parts of the world have begun exploring what it might look like to reopen shops, restaurants, bars, and tourist attractions. Many people have been working from home for weeks or months as senior management teams contemplate: When is it the right time to bring everyone back to the office? How can we do so in the safest manner possible?
As communities attempt to revive the economy, small businesses will face the same question as large ones: How do we reopen after a global pandemic? This is a question few have faced before, but narrower considerations—how to reinvent your business model or how to navigate tricky employment law scenarios—have been explored and studied. Experts and consultants are often financially out of reach for small business owners, leaving them largely on their own to take on such a daunting task. And if they get it wrong, they could lose their business for good.
We at Fortune are thrilled to announce the launch of the The Rebuild Program—an avenue to bring small business owners from across the country together to learn from leading experts and each other.
The program will consist of six weekly virtual conversations—featuring industry consultants and experts and moderated by Fortune editors—that tackle the challenges business owners are facing right now. We’ll also build a digital community where these small business owners can network and pick each others’ brains to share lessons learned.
We’re looking for a variety of small businesses to work with across the country: clothing boutiques, technology manufacturers, restaurant chains. Leaders in U.S.-based companies with fewer than 500 employees are eligible for the program, and applications are now live. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, May 11. Please send questions to feedback@fortune.com with the subject, “The Rebuild Program.”
We’re also launching a new section of Fortune.com called How to Reopen. We aim to chronicle how organizations big and small are rebuilding their businesses, the pain points they are facing, and the insights they can share. We’ll package these in a weekly newsletter launching Sunday, May 17. Sign up now to make sure you’re on the list for the first issue.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—The coronavirus pandemic could have unexpected environmental effects
—Latest round of unemployment claims puts real jobless rate near Great Depression peak
—Could COVID-19 kill coal?
—Unemployment claims are taking some states weeks to process. What to know
—Cybercriminals adapt to coronavirus faster than the A.I. cops hunting them
—Mike Schur talks Parks and Rec coronavirus episode and why remote TV production isn’t the future
—Buccaneers of the basin: The fall of fracking—and the future of oil
—PODCAST: How 2 CEOs outside of health care decided to pivot to fight COVID-19
—WATCH: Fortune’s top 10 heroes of the coronavirus pandemic
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-05-04--Warren Buffett isn’t the only investor shying away from airlines

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has abandoned the airline industry. During a virtual Buffett-palooza this weekend, the famed investor said his company had completely exited its stakes in four major U.S. airlines. “The world changed for airlines and I wish them well,” he said. (More here.)
Buffett isn’t alone in that sentiment. As part of our annual survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, we asked them to pick one Fortune 500 stock they would like to short. Airlines received the most mentions, followed by Boeing. (We’ll report full results of the survey as part of our Fortune 500 issue, out online May 18.)
Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been a whirlwind of activity during the pandemic, organizing his business colleagues and celebrity friends like Bono and Sacha Baron Cohen to source and ship some $50 million worth of PPE supplies to front-line health care workers, and challenging fellow CEOs not to lay off employees for 90 days.
This morning, Salesforce is announcing the launch of a new product, Work.com, to help businesses and communities safely reopen. In addition to providing a data “command center” for monitoring return-to-work readiness, the product will provide insights on reopening from health experts and business leaders.
Benioff will be Fortune’s guest on our new episode of the podcast Leadership Next, to be released tomorrow. You can find previous episodes here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Stocks down
Renewed tensions between the U.S. and China—the Trump administration is pushing hard on the so-far-evidence-free assertion that the novel coronavirus came from a Wuhan lab—have led stocks to fall around the world. Today, the Nikkei 225 was down 2.8% and the Hang Seng fell 4.3%. The Stoxx Europe 600 was down more than 2% in early trading. U.S. futures also point to a modest drop, following a rather dour Friday last week. Economic Times
J. Crew bankruptcy
J. Crew has filed for bankruptcy protection. The mass-market clothing firm is the first major retailer to be felled by the coronavirus pandemic, though it is deeply unlikely to be the last. J. Crew has struck a deal with creditors such as hedge fund Anchorage Capital that will convert $1.65 billion of its debt into equity for them. Its ecommerce operation should stay operational throughout the bankruptcy case, and J. Crew says it will reopen its J. Crew and Madewell stores post-lockdown. New York Times
Wall Street vs Hollywood
Elliott Management is financing a lawsuit brought against Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi streaming service by interactive-video firm Eko, the Wall Street Journal reports. Eko says Quibi is violating its patents and stole trade secrets—it's all to do with a feature that shows different videos depending on the orientation of the viewer's phone. Neither Katzenberg nor Elliott founder Paul Singer is a stranger to high-stakes litigation. WSJ
Telefonica and Liberty
Telefonica's O2 and Liberty Media's Virgin Media may finally merge to form the U.K.'s biggest telecoms operator, according to a Bloomberg report that says an announcement could come early this week. The deal would help Spain's Telefonica pay down its debt pile. Goldman Sachs reckons the combined entity would have an enterprise value of around $30 billion. Bloomberg
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Vaccine timetable
There's little consensus in the scientific community as to when a COVID-19 vaccine might appear—some say fall, some say January, some even say the end of 2021. And when it does come, it might become an annual event like the flu jab. Fortune
Air France
The European Commission has green-lit a €7 billion ($7.7 billion) French state-aid package for Air France. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the state guarantee and shareholder loan would "provide Air France with the liquidity that it urgently needs to withstand the impact of the coronavirus outbreak." Reuters
Norwegian Air Shuttle
Norwegian Air Shuttle might get its own state rescue, after announcing an agreement with aircraft leasing companies that will allow it to convert over $960 million of its debt into equity. Norwegian is in a particularly bad position, having gone into the coronavirus crisis with one of the industry's highest debt loads. Financial Times
Film fight
AMC Theatres is furious with NBCUniversal for saying it will in future release movies across both cinemas and premium video on demand (PVOD), following the success of its Trolls World Tour online release. Cineworld, like AMC, is now saying it won't show films that "fail to respect" the traditional release windows. Universal has backed down slightly, but the spat highlights a fault line in the industry that had been quietly growing even before the lockdown. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace

This is part of a series on China’s emergence from coronavirus lockdowns, featuring seven people who are living it.
For Jasmine Yang, a 37-year-old cofounder of a coding education company, the lockdown in her home city of Chengdu, the capital of China’s central Sichuan province, seemed like some sort of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
“It really felt like the end of the world, and we didn’t know what’s going on,” said Yang. Being trapped in her apartment away from friends, watching online videos of others struggling to cope, and seeing daily news of the pandemic’s growing death toll—in China and abroad—left Yang feeling anxious and scared. Her once-bustling neighborhood was desolate, with few signs of cars or people. “It was like a war zone; I’d never seen anything like this. I can’t even describe how depressing it felt,” she said.
As an employer, she also had the safety and livelihoods of her workers to consider. “Let’s hope next week is better” was the message she sent to employees during the dark days of January and February. Things are better now, on the other side of the lockdown. Her team is back at their desks and slowly adjusting to the peculiarities of a post-pandemic workplace—new practices that offices globally are likely to weigh in the weeks and months to come.
The public square in front of the Sichuan Science and Technology Museum is usually packed with tourists and visitors but was empty as the city locked down in mid-February. Photo by Jasmine Yang
The eastern edge of Sichuan is close to Hubei province, where the pandemic’s epicenter, Wuhan, is located. In fact, a high-speed rail network connects Chengdu’s 16 million inhabitants with Wuhan, and some 55,000 travelers left Wuhan for the Sichuan capital in the three weeks before Wuhan was put under lockdown. Yet Chengdu has confirmed just 145 coronavirus cases and three deaths since the beginning of the outbreak, according to Chinese media.
Starting in late January, Yang, along with her husband and 3-year-old daughter, didn’t leave their city apartment for about a month under orders from building managers and city authorities.
At the time, Yang’s office was already closed for the Chinese New Year, and she knew the company wouldn’t go back to work when the government extended the holiday because of the virus.
The many unknowns of the virus and the local lockdown made things especially difficult. Yang tried to garner information from her network of industry contacts, but they knew as little as she did. She checked in on her staff—all working from home—and waited for government guidance on when the office could reopen.
Some relief came in mid-February, when management of Yang’s apartment started letting residents leave the complex—one person at a time. Yang and her husband alternated trips to the grocery store every three days or so. By the end of February, restrictions loosened further; she and her family could freely leave the apartment, but only after registering for the city’s smartphone health app.
In Chengdu, the app is called Tianfutong, in reference to the city’s nickname meaning Land of Plenty. Yang describes life in Chengdu as more laid-back than fast-paced, work-focused cities like Beijing. And like the region’s famously fiery food, she said, in Chengdu “we have spicy personalities.”
The app rates users by color—green, yellow, and red, denoting their risk level for carrying the virus. Yang has so far received only a green code and is determined to keep it that way. So for now, she is avoiding crowded places like the subway, since she’s heard rumors that being near someone with a yellow or red badge may worsen her own score.
Yang and her fellow employees returned to the office in early March, but not without caveats. The government requires them to maintain stocks of hand sanitizer, disinfectant, and face masks—none of which were easy to procure. After some searching online and in stores, she eventually found high-priced hand sanitizer and disinfectant supplies on Ele.me, a Chinese e-commerce platform, and had them delivered. She ended up sourcing a shipment of face masks from Cambodia because they were so difficult to find locally.
She says all eight of her company’s employees are now coming back to the office every day, and because of its small size, the office hasn’t instituted staggered shifts or a seating chart that would keep distance between workers.
But the government does mandate that the company conduct three temperature checks per employee per day. If someone is running a fever, which hasn’t happened yet, Yang must report it immediately to local authorities, according to a contract she signed in opening up the office.
Her company, Zhongxi Technology Education, has managed to retain most of its customers—coding students—through online classes, having adapted quickly to January’s lockdowns. Her husband, Jimmy Keesee, is managing partner of Zhongxi. When authorities announced quarantine measures, Keesee and his team of coding teachers built an online teaching platform in 10 days.
Zhongxi’s classes are still online. In-person instruction will have to wait until Chengdu’s schools are fully back in session; they are slowly starting back up, according to a government document Yang shared with Fortune. High school seniors and sophomores returned to classes on April 13; juniors and freshmen returned on April 20. Middle and elementary school students will also stagger start dates until all pupils are back May 5. The health code app is required of students too, no matter their age. Yang’s daughter is now registered on Yang’s own app for when the 3-year-old returns to day care.
Yang says creativity and empathy have been critical in helping her company navigate the pandemic.
“There are creative ways to adapt to chaos,” she said. “But you have to be sympathetic [with employees] because you cannot imagine what they have been through. This lockdown was the lowest point of my life, so I can’t imagine what their life has been like.”
As China emerges from the pandemic, Yang hopes that those abroad can identify and connect with the struggles that she and those in China experienced over the past several months.
“We need to discuss our psychological journeys, to help everyone facing the situation right now,” said Yang. “We are all facing this problem as global citizens, not just nation by nation.”
Read the other stories in this Fortune series:
—A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out
—A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out

This is part of a series on China’s emergence from coronavirus lockdowns, featuring seven people who are living it.
After nearly three months of quarantine, Cathy Fu, a communications professional at a tech firm in Beijing, celebrated her first taste of freedom at a local hot pot restaurant, famed for its exceptional customer service. That day, however, the usually welcoming staff tried to turn Fu away.
“When I arrived, I had to show the staff at the counter my QR health code but, when they scanned it, there was a problem,” Fu said, referring to the color-coded QR codes that log information about users’ travel and health on smartphone apps. Fu’s code revealed she had been to Hubei province—where the outbreak began—during the past 14 days. According to Beijing’s rules, she should have been serving a two-week quarantine.
“The day I went to eat hot pot I’d just come out of quarantine, which I had to do after traveling back to Beijing from Hubei, where I had been stuck inside since Chinese New Year,” Fu said. “I had to show the restaurant staff the certificate my compound gave me, which indicated I had completed the home quarantine period. Eventually, they let me in.”
Beijing never implemented the kind of blanket lockdown that Wuhan endured during the worst of China’s COVID-19 outbreak. Yet Fu’s experience illustrates that the capital is still approaching its coronavirus comeback timidly, employing precautionary tactics—such as diverting flights to other cities—that go beyond measures taken in other Chinese metropolises.
Restaurants remained officially open in Beijing while Fu was hunkered down in Hubei, but a system of temperature checks, health code scans, and mandatory distancing sprung up in the capital. Many residential compounds restricted access, and an environment of fear—coupled with the mandatory closure of offices—encouraged most residents to shelter at home.
Beijing, which has had 593 reported cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths, is teetering back to normality, but remains on edge. Before reopening in April, schools conducted drills to practice new operating procedures for mitigating the risk of infection. Teachers played the role of returning students, while other staff ushered them through a check-in process that includes a temperature scan and a quarantine protocol should one of the students show a fever. Middle and elementary schools remain shut indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s eastern Chaoyang district—home to international embassies and luxury malls—became the only “high risk” area in China as of April 16 after a returning student developed symptoms of COVID-19. Like all arrivals in Beijing, the student had to complete a two-week home quarantine but showed signs of the disease afterward, already having made close contact with over 60 others.
Malls and some tourist spots are open. Fu visited the Summer Palace—a verdant palatial complex in the northwest corner of Beijing—the weekend after her release. Her group of four had to book tickets online and select an arrival time as part of new social distancing measures. They went in the afternoon; the morning was already full.
Magnolias bloom in Beijing’s Summer Palace, March 27, 2020. Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Loudspeakers blared reminders to submit to temperature screenings, but Fu doesn’t remember having hers taken. It’s likely the Summer Palace, once the emperor’s retreat from the dusty heat of Beijing, uses infrared cameras to scan crowds for signs of fever. Subway stations and office lobbies in Beijing do the same.
The gateway to Fu’s office in Zhongguancun, Beijing’s startup hub, is guarded by infrared cameras, too. Employees, who returned to the office in mid-February, are checked on again during the day to make sure they haven’t developed a fever at work. During her conversation with Fortune, a colleague arrived at Fu’s desk with a thermometer in hand to check her temperature: 98.5 F. Normal.
Read the other stories in this Fortune series:
—A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace
—A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app

This is part of a series on China’s emergence from coronavirus lockdowns, featuring seven people who are living it.
Vicky Zhao remembers the day Zhong Nanshan, China’s renowned pulmonologist, confirmed human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus. It was Jan. 20, a Monday: “That was the turning point.”
Zhao, who works at an international consulting firm in Shanghai, rushed to order face masks. Between then and Jan. 23, when Wuhan locked down, she noticed more and more masked faces on the streets and supermarket staff scrambling to restock shelves of hand sanitizer.
“It was very surreal, because normally before Chinese New Year holidays we share chocolate or candy or just celebrate,” she said. Instead, “everyone was just buying crazy supplies.”
Her work had carried on as normal. When everyone left for the weeklong New Year holiday on Jan. 24, no one realized that they wouldn’t step back into the office for two months.
Shanghai, like many cities in China, never entered a full lockdown on the scale of Wuhan and other places in Hubei province; nonetheless, the pace of life in the city of 25 million slowed to a crawl. The Shanghai government extended the seven-day New Year holiday by one week in January and encouraged people to stay home. Residential communities and apartment complexes instituted entry restrictions and temperature checks. Restaurants closed, though delivery was still available. Tourist sites and museums shuttered in late January.
But just as Shanghai eased into its shutdown, it eased back out.
Shanghai’s East Nanjing Road, normally one of the busiest shopping streets in the world, in mid-April. Photo by Vicky Zhao.
Rapid diagnosis and extensive contact tracing early on in the outbreak helped Shanghai, a major financial and transport hub, keep cases relatively low. Companies that complied with government-issued criteria like temperature checks, provision of masks, and social distancing mechanisms were allowed to resume work as early as Feb. 10. The largest Starbucks in the world, Shanghai’s Reserve Roastery, reopened on Feb. 26 after closing in January.
By mid-April, nearly all of Shanghai’s museums and art galleries had reopened, with a number of them launching new exhibitions. The Bund, Shanghai’s famous riverside stretch of colonial architecture and high-end bars, is buzzing once more. And there’s evidence that Shanghai is reemerging as a tourist destination; a Trip.com survey named it as a top-three destination for domestic travel for China’s Golden Week holiday, which began May 1.
As it started reopening in mid-February, Shanghai launched a health code system—an app-based tool to trace contacts and evaluate infection risk that’s now ubiquitous in China. In other cities, the color-coded QR system is a ticket out of lockdown and needed to access basic services. But Zhao hasn’t registered for Shanghai’s version yet. She’ll download it when she needs to. Her office building has its own QR entry code, and her sister has been dropping her off at work, so she doesn’t have to flash the app to access public transportation.
She hasn’t dined at restaurants—all of which now require a green QR code to enter—since January. “My kid is small, and I’m living with parents who are probably highly susceptible, so I’m very cautious,” Zhao said.
A coronavirus control checkpoint at Xintiandi, a popular shopping and dining district in Shanghai, in early March. Photo courtesy of Vicky Zhao
After seeing news of the Jan. 23 Wuhan lockdown, Zhao canceled a planned vacation to South Korea, fearing further travel restrictions might leave her stranded. Many of her colleagues who had returned to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year would stay there until mid-March, some trapped by lockdowns and others choosing to remain, since the office was closed and returning to Shanghai meant two weeks in home quarantine.
Zhao, 41, settled into a work-from-home routine. She was often too busy to cook, so she ordered lunch and dinner from restaurants, which continued to offer delivery service. She worked in her bedroom, and her son, who is 7, studied in his, attending classes on Zoom and using an iPad to interact with teachers.
Her parents, who live with her full-time, helped around the house. Sometimes she felt guilty and tried to pitch in with chores during the workday, but her family encouraged her to concentrate on work. “My son is super disciplined, and my parents are very supportive,” she said.
Once, Zhao emerged from her room to take a break. Her son gave her a questioning look: Shouldn’t you be working? She explained she’d just finished a Zoom meeting and wanted to rest her eyes. Her son’s reply put a smile on her face: “Mum, I just finished a Zoom meeting myself too!”
Zhao’s office reopened in mid-March, at half capacity—employees take turns working in the office and from home. Zhao was happy to return to the office, but the first day back, she and her coworkers were met with a sad surprise: The office plants, without anyone to water them, had died.
Colleagues returning to Shanghai underwent a 14-day home quarantine before coming into work. Everyone wears masks and sits one meter apart. There’s a temperature scanner in the lobby, hand sanitizer and masks at reception, and everyone in the office checks their temperature twice daily and records the numbers in case a health inspector swings by.
As of April 29, Shanghai had 645 confirmed cases and seven deaths. The city government is offering coronavirus testing to anyone who wants it—at their own expense—in an effort assuage fears of infection so the economy can restart.
Shanghai’s schools reopened for older students—middle school and high school seniors—on April 27. Zhao’s son, a first-grader, is still at home.
When the outbreak began, it was winter, and the windows of Zhao’s apartment were shut. She can’t recall when they turned off the heaters and started cracking the windows to let air in, but the windows are open now. “Spring is actually here in Shanghai,” Zhao said.
“With birds chirping outside and trees getting these fresh shades of green,” Zhao said, “I was amazed to see how time flies and nature keeps its course, while we all sort of slowed down during this outbreak.”
Read the other stories in this Fortune series:
—A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out
—A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown

This is part of a series on China’s emergence from coronavirus lockdowns, featuring seven people who are living it.
Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province, is evidence that the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns is a precarious endeavor.
In early April, the situation in the city of 10 million was finally looking up for Bill Bailey, a 60-year-old American who teaches English at Heilongjiang International University in Harbin. He had been largely confined to his on-campus apartment for 10 weeks starting in mid-January owing to the pandemic.
“The city was just starting to lift a lot of the lockdown regulations,” said Bailey. By the middle of the month, cars were back in the streets, and people had returned to reopened shops, businesses, and restaurants.
But then the city reimposed some lockdown measures as more coronavirus cases emerged.
Officials in Harbin, known for its namesake beer and annual ice festival, recently reported that a local COVID-19 cluster infected at least 78 people in the city. In April, Harbin had 61 active infections, Chinese media report, up from two active cases in all of Heilongjiang province, where Harbin is located, on March 30. The slide backward was significant enough that China’s central government punished 18 local officials with warnings and “administrative demerits” for insufficiently containing the virus in the city. Among those reprimanded was Chen Yuanfei, Harbin’s deputy mayor, who has played a leading role in the city’s response to COVID-19.
Cleaners blast away dirt on empty streets in northern Harbin as residents stay home once again after a second outbreak in the city in mid-April. Photo by Bill Bailey
Harbin’s proximity to Russia is a concern amid this “second wave” as China’s northern neighbor contends with its own coronavirus outbreak. Russia reported at least 87,000 confirmed cases and 794 deaths as of last week, most of which had occurred since the start of April. Since March 29, Russians—like all foreigners—have been banned from entering China, but the Suifenhe border crossing, about 250 miles to the east of Harbin, had remained open to Chinese nationals returning home until April 7. Some 2,000 Chinese citizens poured across the border from late March until it was finally shut on April 7. It’s still closed today.
Following that move, Harbin took the additional precaution of halting train service to and from Suifenhe, a Chinese town on the border that has reported at least 400 cases imported from Russia. And Harbin implemented broader travel measures, banning nonlocals and vehicles without city registration from entering certain residential zones. The city also announced that all arrivals from abroad would be subject to a 28-day quarantine, doubling the city’s previous 14-day policy. The extended quarantine likely reflects the experience of a student returning to Harbin from abroad, who is suspected of infecting others even after two weeks of isolation.
Beyond official directives, residents and private employers are renewing social distancing measures on their own, Bailey said. On a Sunday in mid-April he observed that the streets were nearly empty. Buses were running, but he was the lone passenger as he traveled to the grocery store. It would be his last casual trip. On April 20, authorities at his university ordered him not to leave campus, barring an “absolute emergency,” and advised that he stop interacting with his neighbors. And this week, the school banned him and his colleagues from leaving campus entirely after a university staff member came down with a suspected case of coronavirus.
For Bailey, another lockdown—even if unofficial—is disappointing, especially since Harbin’s notoriously frigid winter is finally starting to thaw. Bailey, a self-described “outdoors person,” had hoped to take advantage of the warmer weather to explore the city, travel the region, and pursue his interest in photography.
What’s more, the new measures mean it will be difficult, if not impossible, for Bailey to see his wife, who has been in quarantine with family in Beijing since the beginning of the outbreak in January. Bailey moved to Harbin in August, and his wife had planned to reunite with him in Harbin after the Chinese New Year holiday.
“We thought things were getting back to normal, and I was really getting used to being able to go outside,” said Bailey.
The second outbreak has also dashed Bailey’s hopes that he’d be able to return to teaching in a classroom by mid-May. For now, he’s instructing as many as eight classes per week online and is trying to gear his students up, once again, for spending extended periods of time at home. “I tell them it’s really frustrating, but we just have to accept the fact that, in order to keep safe, we try not to be around anybody unless you have to,” he said.
A freezing Harbin winter may be turning into a cold spring.
Read the other stories in this Fortune series:
—A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace
—A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: 7 personal stories of life after lockdown

How does an economy reopen? It’s the question facing so many nations that implemented mass or partial lockdowns as the deadly COVID-19 virus swept the globe. In these places, the worst physiological effects of the coronavirus appear to have passed—at least for now. The devastating economic toll—purposefully inflicted by the shuttering of nonessential businesses—remains and must be urgently addressed.
China, the first country to confront the coronavirus, has made an initial attempt to respond to this question. The answer is not easy. Like their peers globally, Chinese cities implemented restrictions at different times and by different measures as they weighed economic costs against public health benefits. Their reopening reflects that patchwork.
Caught up in local directives to close and reopen—and in some cases, to close again—are people, whose individual stories provide snapshots of how the coronavirus continues to touch the most populous country on Earth.
Below, Fortune has captured seven of those stories from seven people in seven cities.
Individually, they depict the distinct ways Chinese cities are trying to return to “normal”: the incentives, deterrents, and digital tools they’re using to reignite their economies and protect against subsequent coronavirus waves. Together, they reveal the pandemic’s shared human experience—in China, and beyond.
A passenger disembarks from a train traveling between China’s southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Xinhua/Lu Ye via Getty Images
Zach Bielak, an American tech entrepreneur who’s lived in Shenzhen for three years, faced an invasive ordeal when he returned to post-lockdown China by plane. A 6 a.m. throat swab and two-week mandatory quarantine were only part of it. The process was disorienting—even in a city known for mass surveillance—and Bielak expects it to be the new normal.
A man relaxes in Zhongshan Park on April 28, 2020, in Wuhan, China. Zhongshan Park reopened to the public as the government started lifting outbound travel restrictions on April 8 after almost 11 weeks of lockdown. Getty Images
Zhexuan Huang, 21, was supposed to have spent this winter and spring on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Instead, he was holed up with his parents and grandmother in their Wuhan apartment. Nearly a month after Wuhan’s lockdown lifted, his time in isolation feels distant, but deep anxiety remains.
People walk on the Wuchazi Bridge, which is designed with the concept of a Möbius strip, on April 27, 2020, in Chengdu. Zhang Lang—China News Service via Getty Images
Jasmine Yang, a 37-year-old cofounder of a coding education company in Chengdu, describes the city’s lockdown in apocalyptic terms. Its reopening has been jarring too as she’s had to rethink how her workplace operates in a world shaped by the pandemic.
Hustle and bustle return to Shanghai’s Nanjing Road in April 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Vicky Zhao’s hometown of Shanghai, largely spared from the worst of the outbreak, eased into its shutdown, and—just weeks later—it eased back out. The consultant is still taking some precautions, but she’s so far eschewed the contract-tracing app that’s become so essential in other Chinese cities.
A masked worker prepares an order for masked customers in a KFC outlet in Hangzhou in April 2020. The city known as a tech hub is aiming to come back from a partial coronavirus shutdown. Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Peter Zhou, a 25-year-old Cornell graduate working for a tech startup in Hangzhou, says some reopening restrictions in the city, known as a technology hub, have already become formalities. Health monitoring QR codes, for instance, aren’t always checked seriously. Yet technology of another kind has taken a firmer hold: manual labor—carried out by virus-susceptible humans—continues to be automated, but now at a quicker clip.
Commuters, wearing masks, return to Beijing’s subway during rush hour on April 28, 2020. Lintao Zhang—Getty Images
Cathy Fu, a communications professional in Beijing, was nearly turned away from a favorite restaurant when she emerged from a 14-day mandatory quarantine. The staff finally let her in after she displayed a certificate that she’d completed two weeks of isolation. Beijing never implemented a blanket lockdown, but Fu’s experience illustrates that the Chinese capital is still employing precautionary tactics that go beyond measures taken in other Chinese metropolises.
On April 21, 2020, staff members man a checkpoint in the border city of Suifenhe, in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province. A cluster of COVID-19 cases in nearby Harbin has forced officials to tighten restrictions on movement. STR/AFP via Getty Images
In early April, the situation in Harbin, a city of 10 million was finally looking up for Bill Bailey, a 60-year-old American who teaches English at a university there. He had been largely confined to his on-campus apartment for 10 weeks owing to the pandemic, but cars were back in the streets and people were returning to local businesses. But days later, a second-wave of coronavirus cases dashed that progress, as the city reimposed some lockdown measures it had just lifted.
Read all the stories in this Fortune series:
—A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace
—A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out
—A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.


fortune--2020-05-04--Inside China’s reopening: A Shenzhen entrepreneur gets a 6 a.m. throat swab and mandatory quarantine

This is part of a series on China’s emergence from coronavirus lockdowns, featuring seven people who are living it.
China’s southern city of Shenzhen is known for its ubiquitous surveillance. The city tracks citizens via facial recognition cameras, sensors, and cell phone data, and then feeds the information into a central dashboard that city officials use to police and track city residents. But Zach Bielak, an American tech entrepreneur who’s lived in Shenzhen for three years, says the protocol in place to scan inbound travelers for the coronavirus in late March was intrusive, even by those standards.
When the 27-year-old landed on a flight from Bangkok to Guangzhou, 85 miles northwest of Shenzhen, on March 23, airport officials triaged passengers as soon as the aircraft came to a halt. After boarding the plane, officials slapped colored stickers on passports designating travelers’ nationality and where they had traveled from. Passengers were called off the plane by name or according to sticker color and taken through temperature checks in the terminal. They then waited in line for hours, filling out paperwork regarding their personal information, travel histories, and plans in China before finally passing through border security.
Authorities waiting outside the airport steered passengers to buses that would deliver them to quarantine centers closest to their homes: Bielak was off to Shenzhen.
Once there, authorities escorted him to a city hotel, where the lobby was divided in two; one side for quarantine guests and the other for regular guests.
He got to his room at 4 a.m. At 6 a.m. health authorities “came pounding on my door…and shoved a swab down my throat,” said Bielak, who’d fled China for Southeast Asia in mid-January amid the then-emerging epidemic. “That was fun.”
Bielak stayed in the same hotel for two nights until his COVID-19 test came back negative. But his period of isolation wasn’t over. From the hotel, police escorted him to a friend’s empty apartment to undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine. (In a stroke of bad timing, Bielak had been searching for a new apartment when he left China in January.)
In quarantine, Bielak took his temperature twice a day and shared the results in a group chat on Chinese messaging app WeChat, which included 30 or so other recent arrivals to China and was monitored by health officials. Bielak received daily calls and text messages from a sender he assumed was a community health care worker who reminded him to keep reporting his temperature to the WeChat group. If he did not, he would be “subjected to legal measures by the public security authorities,” according to paperwork he received; Bielak says authorities did not expand on what those measures might entail.
Walmart employees check temperatures and scan the health code apps of shoppers at a Shenzhen outlet on April 25. Photo by Zach Bielak
Over the course of the outbreak, the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen confirmed 422 cases of coronavirus with three deaths, according to Chinese media. The city experienced fewer cases than the epicenter in Wuhan and other urban areas like Shanghai and Beijing, but nonetheless came to a standstill for more than a month during the outbreak.
Shenzhen shut down all nonessential businesses in early February. Some residents had to secure passes from their landlords to exit their apartment buildings for trips to the grocery store. Restaurants were closed to all dine-in service until the last week of March.
Bielak found a different Shenzhen when he emerged from quarantine on April 8. He said the city was functioning in almost the exact same way as before he left China. Except now, he needed to download a health code app and everyone was wearing surgical masks.
The health code app in Shenzhen is called Shen Ai Ni, or Shenzhen Loves You, and Bielak says it is necessary to show his code in order to enter malls, higher-end restaurants, apartment or office buildings, and public transportation, but not always necessary for smaller shops and cafés. Using a color-coded system, the app tells officials how likely it is that the user has come into contact with a coronavirus carrier.
Bielak says that crowded bars and private, mask-free gatherings in Shenzhen signal that life in the city has largely returned to normal. Yet he still feels a palpable fear in the city that the virus will return, and some locals are especially suspicious of foreigners, as imported cases of the coronavirus bolster Beijing’s new narrative of COVID-19 as an external threat.
In nearby Guangzhou, a small outbreak in the city’s African immigrant population—10,000 or so live there—ignited racist backlash against the community. Africans say they are unable to enter establishments like restaurants and malls, are forced to sleep on the streets after being denied entry to hotels, and have been hauled from their homes to mandatory quarantine facilities.
On April 12, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian issued a statement saying that China has “zero tolerance for discrimination” and that Guangzhou authorities were “working promptly to improve” treatment of Africans in the city. A few days later, Zhao said that foreign media and officials were exaggerating the incidents in Guangzhou to “sow discord between China and African countries.”
Bielak, who is white, says he has not experienced such overt racism personally, and he’s found Shenzhen to be generally “much more open-minded” in attitudes toward outsiders than Guangzhou. Still, he has noticed that locals won’t ride the elevator with him or scoot away from him on the subway.
“I was supposed to visit a friend last week, and the parents said, ‘You can’t come, because the building isn’t letting foreigners in,’” Bielak said. “Why are [people] scared of us now?”
Bielak says he has plans to travel within China now that he’s back. When he does, he won’t be subject to the same quarantine measures he experienced on his reentry to Shenzhen. Domestic travel is far more relaxed.
International travel, on the other hand, is off the table for now. China banned entry to nearly all foreigners in March, so Bielak would be blocked from coming back if he left. But he assumes he hasn’t had his last 6 a.m. throat swab. So long as the pandemic exists, he expects health scans and quarantine measures to be the norm for travelers to China, especially after foreigners are allowed back in.
Read the other stories in this Fortune series:
—A Wuhan college student still avoids restaurants and public transit
—A tech founder in Chengdu returns to a changed workplace
—A Shanghai consultant eschews a contact-tracing app
—A startup operations manager in Hangzhou sees automation accelerating
—A Beijing tech worker needs a quarantine certificate to dine out
—A Harbin university professor confronts a second lockdown
Subscribe to Fortune’s forthcoming Eastworld newsletter for expert insight on what’s dominating business in Asia.