With caution still high during the coronavirus pandemic, you can’t just walk into any neighborhood you want without showing a health code in China -- not even if you’re a fully armored superhero.
A man dressed up as Japanese superhero Kamen Rider tried to enter a residential community in the eastern city of Hangzhou on Saturday, according to local channel Zhejiang TV. When asked to present his health code, a digitally-generated QR code assigned to citizens to indicate their health status, he seemed to have trouble pulling out his smartphone or ID card from under his elaborate uniform. The man was reportedly returning from a “mall event” and was planning to meet his friends at home to help him undress. With the help of a few people on the scene, he eventually managed to remove his helmet and let a police officer check his code.
Chinese authorities have been using a color-based health code system to track people’s movements during the coronavirus pandemic. Those with a green code can travel freely, but those with yellow or red codes are required to stay home. The central government recently published a technical standard designed to unify health code systems in different localities with the aim of creating a national system.