Red Alert: City on Shutdown Due to Bad Air

For the first time since new stringent air quality control measures were instituted in March of this year, Beijing has declared a Red Alert, immediately calling for odds/evens traffic restrictions, closures of factories and construction sites, and suggesting the closure of local schools.

Under standards set in March of this year, a Red Alert is declared when the air quality is forecast to be over AQI 200 for three days or more. The city declared an Orange Alert at midnight last night, but upgraded the warning to Red at 6:30pm Monday evening, according to a story in the Beijing News.

The most immediate effect of the Red Alert is the institution of odds/evens traffic controls on the roads, which will be enforced beginning at 7am tomorrow (Dec 8) and be in effect through noon on Thursday, Dec 10.

Weather forecasts call for a cold front to roll in Thursday that will help lift the heavy veil of pollution.

The new system was an upgrade to a warning system initially devised in 2013, described in the chart below:

The city government issues the pollution alert via multiple channels, including TV, radio, newspapers, the internet, and text messages.

Red and orange alerts are supposed to be released 24 hours in advance.

In addition to the mandatory restrictions, the measures call for "suggestions" such as the shuttering of public schools when red alerts are announced. That "suggestion" is just enough to make families have no idea what might happen on a red alert day – will children go to school?

Confusion reigned in parent WeChat groups this evening as parents scrambled for news about whether their childrens' school would be in session tomorrow.

Some international schools in Beijing reached for comment indicated that they would still be in session, while others said they would close. Some local schools said school would be in session but no new lessons would be taught so that parents could keep children home without fear of them falling behind.