China has reiterated its unwavering commitment to its long-standing zero-Covid policy, despite growing public frustration the strict measures are costing the very lives they aim to protect.
Unsubstantiated rumors of an exit from the costly strategy had sent Chinese stocks soaring last week, but at a news conference on Saturday, Chinese health officials vowed to continue with the country’s zero-tolerance approach aimed at stamping out Covid cases once they flare up .
The relentless campaign has kept infections and deaths low at great economic and social cost, as rapidly spreading new variants make containment of the virus nearly impossible.
“Practice has proven that our pandemic prevention and control policy and a series of strategic measures are absolutely correct, and the most cost-effective and effective,” said Hu Xiang, a disease control official, when asked if China would adapt its Covid policies in the near future. term.
“We must adhere to the principle of putting people and lives first and the broader strategy of preventing foreign imports and internal recoveries,” Hu said.
The announcement dealt a heavy blow to hopes of easing restrictions, fueled by unverified rumors on social media that China was forming a high-level committee to move away from zero Covid. Share prices of Chinese companies listed in mainland China, Hong Kong and the U.S. rose last week as investors eagerly soaked up any speculation about a potential easing.
The pledge to stick to zero Covid has also caused a lot of frustration for the Chinese public, many of whom have grown increasingly weary of incessant mass testing, central quarantine and strict lockdowns – sometimes lasting for months.
Public frustration and discontent has only grown in recent weeks since top leader Xi Jinping began his third term in office with a resounding endorsement of his zero-Covid policy.
Tragic cases believed to be linked to the policy have gained momentum online as people question why it should continue.
On Friday, a 55-year-old woman fell to her death from the 12th floor of a locked apartment complex in Hohhot, capital of the northern region of Inner Mongolia. The complex was locked down in late October after two cases were reported, with the entrance to its building cordoned off by tall barricades.
In a widely shared audio message, the woman’s daughter was heard banging on the barricade and desperately crying for help, pleading with community workers to unlock the barrier so she could rush to her mother.
“Open the gate! Open the gate! Please, please,” she was heard shouting.
In another video, the daughter was seen kneeling and crying next to her mother, who was motionless on the ground, still wearing a face mask.
The desperate scenes sparked a nationwide outcry, with a related hashtag garnering half a billion views on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform. Local police said in a statement that the woman, who lived with her 29-year-old daughter, suffered from anxiety disorders.
The woman’s death added to a growing list of lives lost during the country’s draconian lockdown. In another tragedy that sparked nationwide outrage, a 3-year-old boy died of gas poisoning on Wednesday in an isolated compound in the northwestern city of Lanzhou after Covid restrictions delayed rescue efforts.
Experts have warned that China could be hit by a new wave of infections – and a new round of government-imposed lockdowns – as winter approaches.
China reported 5,496 local infections on Sunday, a six-month high, according to official data.
More than a third of these infections were reported in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou. The city of 19 million people is grappling with its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic, with large swathes of the Haizhu district under lockdown.
At a press conference on Sunday, officials accused some residents of spreading the virus by flouting quarantine rules and removing barriers to going out to get daily supplies.
Even in places not under extended lockdown, continued orders for Covid testing and strict travel restrictions have fueled growing discontent.
In Beijing, authorities have maintained strict requirements for entering the Chinese capital – home to most senior Chinese leaders. Restrictions were further tightened ahead of the Communist Party Congress in October and have not been eased since.
Residents and business travelers have complained about a pop-up on their health app in Beijing preventing them from returning to the capital, despite negative Covid test results.
In a sign of the extent of public discontent, among those who spoke out against the excessive restrictions were members of the political elite and nationalist influences. Tao Siliang, daughter of Tao Zhu, a former member of the Communist Party’s top Politburo Standing Committee, criticized Beijing’s travel restrictions after she was barred from a pop-up window to return home from a trip to eastern Zhejiang province.
“I’ve been a calm person for a long time, but this time I panicked, because I had the first taste of the sense of loss and helplessness of not being able to return home,” the 81-year-old wrote in a post on social media since then which was deleted.
The problems of returning to Beijing proved too much for Zhou Xiaoping, a fiercely nationalist, anti-American blogger who was singled out for praise by Xi at an art and literature conference in 2014. In a series of Weibo posts, he openly questioned the extended travel restrictions and criticized propaganda efforts that exaggerate Covid deaths abroad.
“What’s the point of doing that?” he wrote in a post that was later removed. “The cost of preventing the epidemic is not only the financial cost, there is also a cost to our livelihoods and lives. Since you (promised) to put people first, you must seek truths from facts.”
