BEIJING – Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food. Supermarkets are still open late. Residents have to endure long lines for mandatory checks.
A new coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised fears that Beijing could become, after ShanghaiChina’s next megacity halts operations to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant. The central government has largely relied on the shutdown, despite their heavy economic and social costs, to pursue Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy to eliminate diseases. infection.
On Monday morning, the National Health Commission said that 47 cases of coronavirus had been found in Beijing since Friday. Three-fifths are in Chaoyang district, which has asked all 3.5 million residents to take three PCR tests over the next five days. Mass testing in response to initial coronavirus cases is sometimes the first step in other cities to strict lockdowns, like the four-week lockdown in Shanghai that has caused much buzz. complaints from residents there.
The outbreak in Beijing, which holds power by the Communist Party and a crowded metropolis, adds even more significance to Mr. Xi, who has ordered that the nation’s capital be virus-free. A prolonged embargo there would add to the economic and political pressure on his government.
“Chaoyang District is now the top focus for pandemic prevention,” Cai Qi, Secretary of the Communist Party of Beijing and Xi’s protégé, said in the guide. quoted in the official Beijing Daily Sunday newspaper. Cai was adamant that Beijing would not hesitate to take steps to contain the infection, which has been criticized by some in Shanghai.
Mr. Cai added: “The important pandemic prevention measures cannot wait until the next day. “All at-risk sites and individuals associated with these cases must be tested that day.”
Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, said cases had spread in the community over the past week, with multiple waves of transmission.
Chaoyang is the trendiest district in the city, filled with luxury shopping malls and expensive apartments. At Shin Kong Place, a shopping mall lined with stores from brands like Chanel, Saint Laurent and Versace, long lines quickly formed at the high-priced supermarket as families rushed to stock up on groceries.
At a PCR testing counter on the street a block away, several dozen people were still queuing at 8 p.m. Sunday when staff members inside, in full white hazmat suits, announced they would be closing. At night. The stall closure has sparked anger from people standing in the dark waiting for tests, which are usually returned in 12 hours. Many people shouted at the staff, and some hit and kicked the booth and tried to open the door and argue with the staff.
Chaoyang did not require residents to check in on Sunday night instead of Monday. But without new test results, residents are not allowed to catch a train or flight to another city before any possible lockdown. When Beijing had a minor outbreak in the summer of 2020, people flocked to train stations to rush out of the city before they could be trapped in them.
Officials in Beijing hope to avoid the experience of Shanghai, where a stifling stalemate this month has dragged down China’s economic outlook and stirred public anger. Residents shared somber stories and Criticisms about locking the door through online letters, a rap song and a bleak video.
“We Shanghai residents feel that there have been many mandatory measures that are unreasonable, confusing and even cruel,” said Ji Xiaolong, a resident of the city who has openly criticized the government’s handling of the situation. government to lock the door.
“When the lockdown started, 80% of the people approved of it and the government policies,” Mr. Ji said in a phone interview. “Now, I estimate that less than 20 percent still support the shutdown.”
However, Party leaders are staunchly defending the goal of “zero Covid” – almost no contagion in general in Chinese society.
In Monday, Shanghai health authority said that the city confirmed 19,455 cases the previous day, a decrease of 1,603 cases from the previous daily figure. The city has allowed residents of some areas deemed safe to step outside, but leaders have warned that broader restrictions must remain in place until the infection is cleared.
“Shanghai is now at a critical juncture in the zero strike,” said Sun Chunlan, China’s vice-premier overseeing the lockdown, said last week. “Pandemic will not wait for humans, and we cannot think of putting our feet up and taking a breather.”
Residents in Shanghai’s Pudong district share photos Over the weekend, new metal fences and cage fences went up around apartment entrances, part of the district’s effort to enforce “hard” quarantine on locked buildings.
The high point of public outcry to the city’s policies was “Sound of April,” a six-minute video that – against the melancholy music and overhead black-and-white footage of Shanghai – replays the voices of citizens begging for help from officials. The video went viral quickly and widely on Chinese social media last week before censors pulled it down.
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It opened with Shanghai officials saying last month that the lockdown would not be necessary, and then it would last just a few days.
Then came a flurry of voices: a food truck driver for the struggling city said his shipment was in danger of rotting because no one came to pick it up; a son said that his ailing father was denied hospital care; a resident forced into isolation in an unfinished hospital; A local official demanded understanding from a man whose pleas for medical attention went unanswered.
Mr. Ji said the video went viral among Shanghai residents, reflecting the disdain of the official media about the crisis.
“This video pulls the fig leaf away from these forces,” he said. “At this point of crisis, the people of Shanghai have begun to pull together.”
Some of the critics of Shanghai’s response are senior members of the academic establishment, who often keep their views private.
In a submission to the government that spread on Chinese news media, Tang Xiaotian, a professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, warned that officials should avoid potentially illegal means to detain people. Residents have been angered by measures such as barricades around apartments that could impede fire escape, he noted.
Official propaganda about the Shanghai strike has “damaged the credibility of the government,” Liu Xiaobing, a professor at Shanghai University of Economics and Finance who is a member of China’s national legislature, wrote in an essay shared on Chinese social media. It was also later removed. He did not respond to an email seeking comment.
“Policy enforcers are only worried about the trouble they might bring themselves if they loosen controls,” Liu wrote. “They never worried about being called for accountability for the harm caused by amputee restrictions.”
Li You research contributions.
