Status: 05/21/2022 5:35 p.m
Because of 26 Corona cases, 13,000 residents of a settlement in Beijing had to leave their homes. Despite negative tests, people are isolated in quarantine centers for seven days, according to the authorities.
In Beijing, thousands of people have been taken to quarantine centers despite negative corona tests. More than 13,000 residents of the Nanxinyuan settlement in the southeast of the Chinese capital had to leave their homes on Saturday night.
This emerges from photos and a statement from the government authorities that were distributed in online networks. The people were therefore driven to quarantine centers in buses.
Restaurants and schools closed
The reason for the measure should be 26 new infections. Authorities in Beijing’s Chaoyang District said quarantine would be ordered for all residents of Nanxinyuan from “midnight on May 21 for seven days.” It also said: “Please cooperate. Otherwise, you will bear the legal consequences.”
In Beijing, more than 1,300 people have been infected with the omicron variant of the corona virus since the end of April. Restaurants, schools and tourist attractions have been closed indefinitely. Local public transport is drastically restricted, and home office work is ordered in many districts.
3.8 million people in lockdown
In view of the quarantine order in Nanxinyuan, users on the online network Weibo expressed the fear that the corona measures in the capital would be tightened similarly to those in the economic metropolis of Shanghai. In April, thousands of people were taken to quarantine centers, some hundreds of kilometers away.
According to the authorities there, the city has now reached the “zero Covid” state. Nevertheless, more than 3.8 million residents of the city were still under the strictest lockdown on Tuesday. The anger in social networks was great.
WHO: “Strategy unsustainable”
China has been experiencing the worst corona outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic for weeks. The country had relied on rigorous restrictions from the start and was thus able to keep the number of infections at a low level by international comparison for a long time. China continues to adhere to a strict zero-Covid strategy, differentiating it from many other countries.
According to the World Health Organization, this strategy cannot be maintained in the long term. The omicron variant of the virus is simply too contagious for this, said WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Ultimately, however, each country must decide for itself how to proceed against the virus.