The Censorship Crisis in China: A Case Study of the Covid-Induced Lockdown, Travel Restricted and Unresolved
Beijing’s hardline COVID control policies have resulted in a series of lockdowns around the country, including several in major cities. The lockdowns and travel restrictions have also hurt China’s economy and engendered a deep sense of frustration in a swath of the populace.
A video that shows her shouting abuse at the hazmat-suited workers below is gaining steam on social media, which is believed to embody the Chinese public’s growing frustration with their government’s uncompromising zero- Covid policy.
The woman yelled at the workers because she has been under complacence for half a year after returning from university. They are seemingly unmoved as they stare back.
While most Asian economies – even those with previously hardline zero-Covid stances – are abandoning pandemic-era restrictions, authorities in China remain zealous in theirs, repeatedly insisting this week in state-run media articles that the battle against the virus remains “winnable.”
That claim comes even as infections flare and a new strain circulates just days before the country’s most important political event, the Communist Party Congress beginning in Beijing on Sunday at which Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.
Observers across the world will be watching the twice-a-decade meeting for signs of the party’s priorities when it comes to its zero-Covid stance, which has been blamed for exacerbating mounting problems in the economy, from stalled growth to a collapsing housing market.
Covid-19 in China: What is going on in the Weibo and WeChat? When did the protest against Xi get out of jail?
Nerves are high in China’s capital, where online photos posted Thursday appeared to show an exceptionally rare public protest against Xi. Say no to the Covid test and go for food. No to be locked up and only allowed to go outside. No to lies, even if it means being put indignity. To reform is not a cultural revolution. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” read one banner hung over an overpass despite the heightened security surrounding the Congress.
Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, immediately censored search results for “Sitong Bridge,” the site of the protest. Before long, key words including “Beijing,” “Haidian,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were restricted from search.
A number of accounts on the Weibo and WeChat, which are used for daily lives in China, have been banned after they commented on the protest.
Many people spoke out to express their support and awe. The Chinese pop hit “Lonely Warrior” was shared by some and some said it was a reference to the protester, others said it was a hero.
Even with the public’s discontent, all signs suggest that the zero-Covid approach will be retained by the Party, with state media articles this week showing that there may not be a change after Congress.
According to CNN, more than 300 million people were affected by a partial or full shut down in many cities in China last month.
In a country where one Covid-19 case can cause a city-wide lockdown, China has a significant number of locally transmitted Covid-19 cases.
Spooked by the possibility of unpredictable and unannounced snap lockdowns – and mindful that authorities have previously backtracked after suggesting that no such measures were coming – some people in the city have reportedly been hoarding drinking water.
That panic buying has been made worse by an announcement that Shanghai’s water authorities have taken action to ensure water quality after discovering saltwater inflows to two reservoirs at the mouth of the Yangtze River in September.
Exactly what is driving the increase in infections is not clear, though authorities are scrambling to contain the spread of the BF.7 coronavirus strain after it was first detected in China in late September in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia.
Despite the restrictions that were put in place to prevent people from going to China during its Golden week holiday in October, there has been an increase in cases in domestic tourist destinations.
More than 240,000 university students in Inner Mongolia have been locked down on campuses due to the latest outbreak, according to Zhang Xiaoying, a deputy director of the regional Department of Education. And the outbreak on campus has led to punitive action, with one university Communist Party boss being sacked after 39 students from his institution tested positive.
22 million people are banned from leaving the western part of China’s Xinjiang province and are required to stay in the area. Xinjiang recorded 403 new cases on Thursday, according to an official tally.
Yet amid it all, Beijing appears unwilling to move from its hardline stance. For three days this week, the state-run Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published commentaries reiterating that China would not let its guard down.
It insisted that the battle against Covid was winnable. Other countries that had reopened and eased restrictions had done so because they had no choice, it said, as they had failed to “effectively control the epidemic in a timely manner.”
The Chinese government announced Friday that it would be changing its monitoring and control regime, as well as shorteningQuarantine requirements, in order to ease its “dynamic zero COVID” policy.
The new measures were announced Friday following a meeting by the ruling Communist Party’s top decision-making body, during which leaders vowed to maintain Covid protocols while stressing the need to minimize economic and social disruptions.
Easing the Covid-19 ban and what it means for the stock market and for international travellers in the epoch of growth
The zero-tolerance approach has drawn a backlash due to its heavy economic and social costs.
The easing of the measures will see authorities scrap the so-called “circuit breaker” mechanism, under which China-bound flights were suspended if an airline was found to carry a certain number of passengers who tested positive for Covid upon landing.
The pre- departure test requirement for inbound international passengers will be reduced from 2 to 1 and the mandatory home isolation will be cut from 7 days to 5 days.
Markets responded positively to the changes as Covid-19 restrictions kept investors jittery. The Hang Seng Index went up 7 percent just after the noon break, while the mainland China’s benchmark index went up 2.5%.
Under the new guidelines, people who are identified as close contacts of Covid-19 cases will also have shortened quarantine at centralized government-operated facilities, down from seven days plus another three days at home, to five days and three days at home.
Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, stated that the guidelines do not lift testing and requirements for international travellers if the objective is no longer zero carbon dioxide.
The government reported 10,535 new domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, the highest number in months and the authorities prepared for the situation to get worse.
The National Health Commission said that the epidemic is likely to expand in scope and scale due to weather and genetic factors.
Unlikely China: CNN’s Meanwhile in China — A Zero-Covid-Discontent-Reopening Mic Intl-hnk Story
This story was part of CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about China’s rise and how it impacts the world. You can sign up here.
The home of Zhou and his father on the far outskirts of Beijing was locked down at about 2:30 pm on November 1, 2015, after Zhou last saw his dad alive in a video chat.
He said that Zhou’s parents and his 10-year-old son were not aware of the Covid restrictions when they moved into their apartment.
The family found out the hard way, when Zhou’s father was denied immediate emergency medical help after he suddenly began struggling to breathe during the video call. Zhou and his son made a number of calls for an ambulance, but security guards stopped them from going to the hospital, he said.
On the same day Zhou lost his father, a 3-year-old boy died of gas poisoning in a locked-down compound in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, after he was blocked from being taken promptly to a hospital. A little girl died in a hotel after a 12- hour delay in receiving medical care.
Zhou said he contacted several state media outlets in Beijing to report on his story, but no reporters came. He turned to foreign media even though he was aware of repercussions from the government. CNN is using his name as a way to mitigate the risk.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/25/china/china-zero-covid-discontent-reopening-mic-intl-hnk/index.html
Outrage over the Covid Lockdown: An Online Uprising of Discontent in the Zhengzhou, Chongqing, and Beijing
In the central city of Zhengzhou this week, workers at the world’s biggest iPhone assembly factory clashed with hazmat-suited security officers over a delay in bonus payment and chaotic Covid rules.
And on Thursday, in the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing in the southwest, a resident delivered a searing speech criticizing the Covid lockdown on his residential compound. “Without freedom, I would rather die!” Several police officers tried to take him away, but he fought them off and was wrestled to the ground by a crowd of cheering people.
Many Chinese football fans are only able to watch the World Cup at home because of restrictions, so these acts of defiance echoed an online uprising of discontent.
Fans are not told to submit proof of test results or to wear face masks. Are they not living on the same planet as us?” The article questioning China’s insistence on zero-Covid was asked about by Wechat.
The growing public discontent and the heavy economic toll it has on Chinese people can be seen in the signs that Chinese officials feel the heat of it.
Local officials are reverting to the strictures of the previous century, as soon as possible, in order to limit the number of infections.
The city of Shijiazhuang was the first to cancel mass testing. It also allowed students to return to schools after a long period of online classes. Authorities ordered residents to stay home on Monday because of cases that increased over the weekend.
People arriving in the city are not allowed into certain places for five days. Half of the city’s cultural and entertainment venues were shut down.
In Guangzhou, officials this week extended the lockdown on Haizhu district – where the protest took place – for the fifth time, and locked down its most populous Baiyun district.
In Beijing, streets in its largest district of Chaoyang are largely empty as authorities urged residents to stay home and ordered businesses to shut. Several districts are moving online classes this week.
“Nothing like a zero-Covid vaccine”: Seniors’ anger at the Chinese anti-covacuum policy in the 21st century
There is a lack of trust in medical professionals and vaccine hesitancy among older people. Many older people live in rural and remote areas so it will take time to vaccinate them, says Xi Chen.
He does not think there will be major changes to the policy in the short term. The incentive structure has not been changed. They are still held accountable for the Covid situation in their jurisdiction,” he said.
For their part, Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that the 20 measures listed in the government guidelines were meant for a pivot to living with the virus.
Zhou said while the zero- Covid policy was beneficial to the majority, it was too restrictive at a local level.
He doesn’t want things like that to happen in China or anywhere in the world. “I lost my father. My son’s grandpa passed away. I am angry now.
The shock of the recent changes to Beijing’s zero-covid control measures and swine-flu policy on the epidemic: A frustrated manager in Shanghai: “The world is going to hell”
Some of the physical signs of China’s zero-covid controls have been dismantled, as well as some of the health code signs at Metro station walls, after the government announced an upgrade of its policy on the swine flu.
While the changes were greeted with relief by many and sparked discussion online of freer travel within the country – and perhaps even international travel in the future – there was also a sense of uncertainty about what lay ahead.
A manager of a tech company in Beijing,Echo Ding said the world changed overnight. We are getting back to being normal. If I don’t get back to a normal life, I might lose my mind.
How can it change so quickly? “Do you know what I’m talking about?” It makes me feel like we are fools. It’s all up to them. I feel good now because they said it was good. It is so amazing, but I have no choice. I have no choice but to follow the arrangement.
David Wang, 33, a freelancer in Shanghai, said although the changes were welcome, they had also sparked a feeling of disbelief in the city, which underwent a chaotic, more than two-month-long, citywide lockdown earlier this year.
“Of course I was very happy about these new changes – (but) most of my friends are showing typical signs of PTSD, they just can’t believe it’s happening,” he said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html
The first sweeping rollback of Covid-19 in China: public opinion and data from the first round of official sessions on “What to do if you come in contact with an animal”
Top health officials in Beijing on Wednesday said the changes to the rules were based on scientific evidence, including the spread of the comparatively milder Omicron variant, the vaccination rate, and China’s level of experience in responding to the virus.
Last Wednesday, top health officials made a sweeping rollback of the mass testing, centralized quarantine, and health code tracking rules that it had relied on to control viral spread. Some aspects of those measures, such as health code use in designated places and central quarantine of severe cases, as well as home isolation of cases, remain.
The dangers of the virus and its long-term effects was used by the government and state media to justify the maintenance of restrictive policies.
A small number of serious cases could have a noticeable impact on the health system in a country with more than 1.5 billion people.
Meanwhile, experts have warned a lack of experience with the virus – and years of state media coverage focusing on its dangers and impact overseas, before a recent shift in tone – could push those who are not in critical need to seek medical care, further overwhelming systems.
There were many reports of panic buying of medicine in China on Thursday, due to the high topics and hashtags on Weibo relating to what to do if you are bitten by Omicron.
People weren’t told what kind of medicine they should have and what should be done if they came in contact with an animal. Sam Wang said that he thought the policy release was sudden and arbitrary, and that it should have been done a long time ago.
People are worried about living with the virus. Aurora Hao, 27, an English teacher in Beijing said: “I want to keep myself safe, because I could be fine after my first infection, but if I am reinfected a second or third time, I’m not sure what harm that will bring to my body.”
Fears about the impact of Covid-19 within China may also play out along generational and geographic lines, as younger people and those in more cosmopolitan urban centers may be more likely to support reopening the country and relaxing rules, residents said.
Implications of the new Beijing-China Health Code for Vaccine Compliance and Accessibility for the Primary Care System: A Washington, Connecticut, Analytical Study
Wang said his mother was buying high-grade N95 masks and was ready for a nuclear winter until a wave of cases passed.
Already there has been some contradiction in how the guidelines are implemented as local authorities adjust – and many are watching to see the impact in their cities.
In Beijing, authorities on Wednesday said a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required for dining in at restaurants or entering some entertainment venues – in conflict with the national guidelines.
Her health code turned yellow on Wednesday evening, meaning she can’t enter most public places until she takes another test to see if the first one is positive. Now, with the new rules she knew she could largely go out freely, but instead she stayed at home to “wait and see.”
The latest national guidelines state that mass testing across entire cities is no longer required. Instead of shutting down cities, the government says movement restrictions should be applied to high-risk communities. People no longer have to show evidence of a negative test to travel between regions or access public transport and other venues, except for high-risk settings such as nursing homes. And the guidelines prioritize boosting the low rates of vaccination among older people.
Researchers say that aspects of the new rules, like when to test people during an outbreak and how to manage high-Risk areas, are open to interpretation by local governments.
In China, it is difficult to limit transmission in high-rise buildings. Allowing people to go home is one of the causes of viral spread, according to a researcher. This could overwhelm hospitals.
The timing of the reopening is not ideal, say researchers. Hospitals will have a rise in the number of patients during winter due to the peak season for the flu. And many people will also be travelling across the country for next month’s Lunar New Year and spring festival, further increasing viral spread, says Xi Chen, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies China’s public-health system.
China doesn’t have a strong system for primary medical care system, such as a network of general practitioners, so people go to hospital for mild conditions, says Xi Chen, who hopes more details on how the government plans to triage care will emerge in the coming days.
Joy Zhang, a sociologist at the University of Kent in England, says eased restrictions might not help businesses recover from lengthy lock ups or remove the stigma attached to COVID 19 if not for additional support. “I’m afraid that the health and socio-economic risk will be passed on to individuals.”
Cowling says urgent guidance is needed on how to curb transmission during surge, which could include through mask mandates, work from home policies and temporary school closings. It’s not clear how officials will be able to determine the peak of an infection wave, due to the reduction in testing.
The guidelines suggest setting up mobile clinics and training medical staff to better address people’s safety concerns. They don’t offer strong incentives for local governments to increase their vaccination rates. Whether the inevitable rise in infections will lead to a spike in deaths remains to be seen. “The full impact remains to be unfolded,” he says.
Changes continued Monday as authorities announced a deactivation of the “mobile itinerary card” health tracking function planned for the following day.
It had been a point of contention for many Chinese people, including due to concerns around data collection and its use by local governments to ban entry to those who have visited a city with a “high-risk zone,” even if they did not go to those areas within that city.
How well will China handle COVID-19? The Beijing emergency center warned against visiting hospitals in the wake of a massive pandemic: a top Covid-19 expert
But as the scrapping of parts of the zero-Covid infrastructure come apace, there are questions about how the country’s health system will handle a mass outbreak.
The China Youth Daily reported on the hours-long lines at a Beijing clinic on Friday, and said experts urged residents not to visit hospitals unless necessary.
Health workers in the capital were also grappling with a surge in emergency calls, including from many Covid-positive residents with mild or no symptoms, with a hospital official on Saturday appealing to residents in such cases not to call the city’s 911-like emergency services line and tie up resources needed by the seriously ill.
The daily volume of emergency calls had surged from its usual 5,000 to more than 30,000 in recent days, Chen Zhi, chief physician of the Beijing Emergency Center said, according to official media.
Covid was “spreading rapidly” driven by highly transmissible Omicron variants in China, a top Covid-19 expert, Zhong Nanshan, said in an interview published by state media Saturday.
“No matter how strong the prevention and control is, it will be difficult to completely cut off the transmission chain,” Zhong, who has been a key public voice since the earliest days of the pandemic in 2020, was quoted saying by Xinhua.
The rapid rollback of testing nationwide and the shift by many people to use antigen tests at home has also made it difficult to gauge the extent of the spread, with official data now appearing meaningless.
Outside experts have warned that China may be underprepared to handle the expected surge of cases, after the surprise move to lift its measures in the wake of nationwide protests against the policy, growing case numbers and rising economic costs.
Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals’ ability to deal with severe cases.
There was a shortage of some “hot-selling” drugs, and China’s market watchdog said they were going to crack down on price hikes, while a major retailer said it was taking precautions to ensure stable supplies.
A hashtag trending on China’s heavily moderated social media platform Weibo over the weekend featured a state media interview with a Beijing doctor saying people who tested positive for Covid-19 but had no or mild symptoms did not need to take medication to recover.
“People with asymptomatic inflections do not need medication at all. It is enough to rest at home, maintain a good mood and physical condition The interview with Li, the chief infectious disease physician at Beijing You An Hospital, has been viewed more than 355 million times since Friday.
Beijing Drops a Travel Tracer as a “Zero-COVID-19” Exit from a Long-term Uncertainty in the Chinese Economy
BEIJING (AP) — China will drop a travel tracing requirement as part of an uncertain exit from its strict “zero-COVID” policies that have elicited widespread dissatisfaction.
Last month in Beijing and several other cities, protests over the restrictions grew into calls for leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party to step down — a level of public dissent not seen in decades.
While met with relief, the relaxation has also sparked concerns about a new wave of infections potentially overwhelming health care resources in some areas.
The government reversed course and allowed people with mild symptoms to recuperate at home instead of being sent to field hospitals that have become notorious for overcrowding.
Reports on the Chinese internet, which is tightly controlled by the government, sought to reassure a nervous public, stating that restrictions would continue to be dropped and travel, indoor dining and other economic activity would soon be returning to pre-pandemic conditions.
China’s leaders had long praised the “zero-COVID” policy for keeping cases and deaths lower than other countries, but now health officials are saying that the most prevalent omicron variety poses less of a risk.
Protests started after 10 people died in a fire in the city of Urumqi. Many believed COVID-19 restrictions may have impeded rescue efforts. The claims were denied, but protesters gave voice to longstanding frustration in cities that have been subjected to severe lockdowns.
Xi’s government promised to reduce the cost and disruption after the economy shrank by 2.6% from the previous quarter in the three months ending in June. Forecasters say the economy probably is shrinking in the current quarter. In November imports plunged 10.9% from a year ago.
The ruling party could reverse course and impose restrictions if there is an outbreak, according to experts.
There was a lot of room for local governments to assign their own regulations last week. Most restaurants in Beijing, for example, still require a negative test result obtained over the previous 48 hours and rules are even stricter for government offices.
What a knocking knock triggered in the city of Guangzhou, China, occurred after a student tested positive for Covid-19
Editor’s Note: Lars Hamer is the Editor-in-Chief of the China lifestyle magazine, That’s. He has lived in Guangzhou, China since 2018. The views he expresses in this commentary are his own. Follow him on Twitter @LarsHamer1. Read more opinion on CNN.
It’s the knock every resident here dreads. Early Tuesday morning, a sudden loud banging at the door of my apartment in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. Health care workers wearing hazmat suits were telling everyone to go downstairs because a neighbor tested positive for Covid-19.
There was a reason to worry. Just one month ago, a teacher friend of mine and his colleagues were sent to centralized quarantine after one student at his school tested positive for Covid-19. I was scared that the same thing would happen to me.
There was nothing of the sort. I didn’t do well on the Covid-19 test. I was free to leave my house and go about my day without restriction before my result came out.
If this had happened just a few weeks before, I would have been labeled a close contact and therefore would not have been able to escape the facility.
Over the next few days, the Guangzhou I came to in 2018 was almost back to normal. The streets were lined with people. The friends and families that had not seen each other for months were gathered in bars and restaurants, and their movements were no longer tracked.
The blocking of fire exits in the event of a lock down is forbidden by the new measure. People who are sick can keep a low profile at home. Quarantine facilities will soon be replaced by something else.
Friends and families who have not seen each other for months were gathering in bars and restaurants with their own codes and no one could track their movements.
I spent most days working until late at night because it was the only thing to do; non-essential businesses had closed, and millions of people were confined to their homes. I too began to feel the strain and started considering leaving the country.
It was a moment of disbelief. The numbers of cases that Guangzhou had on that day were just like those that led to a city-wide lock-up in SHANGHAI in April.
Beijing’s University Students Return Home Early for Testing During the Lunar New Year: A Study of the Long-Term Behavior of COVID-19 in the First Three Days
BEIJING — Some Chinese universities say they will allow students to finish the semester from home in hopes of reducing the potential of a bigger COVID-19 outbreak during the January Lunar New Year travel rush.
Many universities in the area said that students could either return home early or stay on campus for testing every 48 hours, but it was unclear how many schools were participating. China’s busiest travel season is in the January portion of the lunar new year.
In the past three years universities have been the scene of more frequent lock downs, leading to disagreements between the authorities and students in their dorm rooms.
The move follows the government’s dramatic announcement last week that it was ending many of the strictest measures, following three years during which it enforced some of the world’s tightest virus restrictions.
The government of the semi-autonomous southern city took a further step Tuesday, saying it would remove restrictions for arriving travelers that currently prevent them from dining in restaurants or going to bars for the first three days. The vaccine requirements will remain in place, although it will stop using its contact-tracing app. The new measures take effect Wednesday.
The easing of control measures on the mainland means a sharp drop in obligatory testing from which daily infections numbers are compiled, but cases appear to be rising rapidly, with many testing themselves at home and staying away from hospitals.
China’s government-supplied figures have not been independently verified and questions have been raised about whether the ruling Communist Party has sought to minimize numbers of cases and deaths.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/13/1142416107/china-university-students-return-home-covid
U.S. consulates in Shenyang and Wuhan are open 24 hours a day a week in response to COVID-19
The U.S. consulates in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang and the central city of Wuhan will offer only emergency services from Tuesday “in response to increased number of COVID-19 cases,” the State Department said.
The e-mailed message stated that the MissionChina makes every attempt to ensure that US citizens in the People’s Republic of China have full consular services.