Status: 07.11.2022 12:15 p.m
Zero Covid and unconditional lockdowns – China has been following a strict course to avoid corona infections since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of new infections is currently as high as it was half a year ago, at 5600.
Despite massive countermeasures, the number of new corona infections in China continues to rise. With over 5,600 cases, it is at a level last seen in May 2022. A large part of the new infections was registered in the economically important province of Guangdong.
The Chinese government has been pursuing a strict zero-Covid strategy since the beginning of the pandemic. With rigorous lockdowns of entire provinces, sometimes lasting months. The infection situation in the country has recently gotten worse and worse.
Workers install a barricade around a residential area in Beijing as a resident looks out a window amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Image: REUTERS
In addition, dissatisfaction among the Chinese population is growing after more than two years of a zero-Covid policy. The health authority’s announcement that it would continue to “unshakeably” adhere to the current corona policy caused a lot of criticism in online networks. The Chinese economy is also still struggling with production losses due to the tough measures.
accidents and suicides
Recently, two deaths caused protests due to the rigorous lockdown measures. A 55-year-old woman fell to her death from her apartment in Hohhot, Mongolia. Her family had previously warned authorities that she had an anxiety disorder and was suicidal. Voice recordings of the daughter with the desperate request to the authorities then circulated on the Internet – and triggered unusually loud criticism for autocratic China.
Nobody is allowed out. Consistent lockdowns, like here in Shanghai, have been part of everyday life in China since the beginning of the pandemic.
Image: REUTERS
Just days earlier, another death in a locked-down apartment complex caused a stir. A three-year-old child died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the metropolis of Lanzhou. The boy’s father indirectly blamed the strict lockdown policy for his son’s death as it caused delays in treatment.
“Personally, I think he was killed indirectly,” the boy’s father, Tuo Shilei, told Reuters from the provincial capital of Lanzhou in Gansu, which has been under lockdown for several months.
Despite several requests for help to the authorities, nobody came to open the apartment. After the child’s father broke down the door himself, he found no help at the checkpoint in front of the residential complex either. After a hastily organized taxi ride to the hospital, help came too late for the child. The case sparked outrage on social media.