The current renewed outbreak of Covid in China is instructive for a number of reasons, firstly because it shows how hollow China’s boasting about containing at home the pandemic it unleashed on the world really is.
More importantly, though, it illustrates how the draconian regime of lockdowns and mask mandates that China pioneered and Western leaders followed in a blind panic have little to do with public health and everything to do with politics. It also shows just how weak the supposedly terrifying new variants really are.
China’s outbreak is, for the nation’s size, relatively small, and almost benign. Just over 3% of the current “cases” even show symptoms — and no-one has died. Yet, the Chinese Communist Party is shutting down some of the nation’s biggest cities and imposing lockdowns that make Jacinda Ardern or Daniel Andrews look lackadaisical.
The manufacturing hub of Guangzhou closed itself to most arrivals Monday as China battles a major COVID-19 surge in its big eastern cities.
Shanghai has taken the brunt of the rise, with another 26,087 cases announced on Monday, only 914 of which showed symptoms. The city of 26 million is under a tight lockdown, with many residents confined to their homes for up to three weeks and concerns growing over the effect on the economy of China’s largest city.
The financial hub has seen international events canceled because of the crackdown, and local football club Shanghai Port has been forced to withdraw from the Asian Champions League because travel restrictions prevented it from attending games in Thailand.
MedicalXPress
The lockdown in Shanghai was even more dramatic.
Some residents of Shanghai were allowed out of their homes Tuesday as the city of 25 million eased a two-week-old shutdown Tuesday after videos posted online showed what was said to be people who ran out of food breaking into a supermarket and shouting appeals for help […]
The abrupt closure of most businesses and orders to stay home left the public fuming about a lack of access to food and medicine. People who test positive for the virus have been forced into sprawling temporary quarantine facilities criticized by some as crowded and unsanitary.
Say, what do Shanghai and Auckland have in common?
The unusual severity of Shanghai’s shutdown starting March 28 appeared to be driven as much by politics as by public health concerns.
Sound familiar, Aucklanders?
The struggle in China’s richest city is an embarrassment during a politically sensitive year when President Xi Jinping is expected to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party.
China’s case numbers are relatively low, but the ruling party is enforcing a “zero-tolerance” strategy that has suspended access to major cities to isolate every infected person.
The hysterical over-reaction by political bosses is threatening the CCP’s vaunted “harmonious society”.
A video that circulated online Saturday showed what the caption said were people in the Songjiang district breaking into a supermarket and carrying away cartons of food.
Another showed people thrusting their fists into the air in front of what appeared to be government employees wearing hooded white protective suits. A third showed what it said were apartment dwellers, barred from going outside, shouting appeals for help out their windows.
The unrest is so widespread that even China’s army of online censors is unable to keep a lid on it all.
The ruling party requires Chinese social media operators to enforce censorship and remove videos and other postings about banned topics. Social media and online bulletin boards are filled with complaints about the Shanghai shutdown and appeals for food or medicine. It is unclear how many others might have been deleted.
MedicalXPress
Well, they can’t have “harmful misinformation” getting out and creating “social disharmony”, now can they? Just ask David Fisher.
