China congress precautions now include virus tests for media

BEIJING (AP) — At 5:40 a.m. on an overcast morning, I was on my way to cover the opening of China’s biggest political gathering of the year when we ran into that rarest of sights in the age of coronavirus.

“Wow! A traffic jam at this hour of the day?” the driver exclaimed, tapping the brakes to stop on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace.

A minor one, sure, but a sign of how normality is returning to China. That China is holding the Two Sessions — bringing 5,000 delegates to the capital for two concurrent meetings — is a clear signal of confidence on the part of President Xi Jinping that he has the pathogen under control.

But make no mistake: Beijing’s bureaucrats aren’t taking chances. Though the opening ceremony for the first meeting was at 3 p.m. Thursday, the reason I woke at such an early hour was because authorities had mandated every journalist take a COVID-19 nucleic acid test nine hours earlier.

One by one, I and other foreign journalists fought the urge to gag as technicians in blue gowns and sneeze guards swabbed our tonsils. We were sequestered while waiting for the results, snoozing in guest rooms at the Diaoyutai hotel, part of a lodging complex for visiting dignitaries. If just one of us tested positive, all of us would be barred.

Lunch — stir-fried pork with lotus shoots, steamed bok choy, and fish stewed in a butter sauce — was served in a sealed box, delivered by tray to squat tables outside our rooms. A Foreign Ministry staffer rang my room, warning me not to venture out until we got our results.

Six hours later, another call: We were all clear.

We piled into a bus and rushed to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, the Maoist answer to the U.S. Capitol. “Congratulations!” our handlers said, telling us it was a special...