China announced plans to scrap its primary Covid tracking app in the latest rollback of pandemic control measures, just days after abruptly abandoning its long-running zero-Covid policy. It came as health authorities warned of widespread infections on the horizon, and redeployed hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses to intensive care units in preparation for an Omicron surge through the population of 1.4 billion people. On Tuesday the government-run “communications itinerary card” will be retired, according to an official announcement on Monday. The app tracked people’s movements using mobile phone…
Tag: Infectious diseases
Economists hail end to zero Covid in China but huge human toll is feared
Beijing’s abrupt dismantling of zero-Covid controls has been welcomed by economists, even as the country braces itself for the human impact of letting the disease spread through a vulnerable population. The leadership’s abrupt U-turn on how it handles the pandemic appears to have been triggered by protests against controls that began last month, a nationwide show of discontent on a scale China had not seen in decades. But that unrest came after growing concern about the toll that isolation and regular harsh lockdowns were having on the country’s economy. China…
China’s Covid policy didn’t have to end in riot and protest. This is why it did | Stephen Reicher
On Thursday 24 November, a fire broke out on the 15th floor of an apartment block in Urumqi, capital of the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. At least 10 people died, all from the minority Uyghur community. Outrage grew at the fact that the deaths were entirely avoidable, caused by China’s draconian Covid lockdown policy. Some of the victims were sealed in their flats; the building’s fire exits were locked; fire engines were delayed by Covid barriers. Demonstrations and vigils in response soon spread across the country. Ten days later,…
China’s Xi Jinping ‘unwilling’ to accept western Covid vaccines says US intelligence chief
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with Covid-19, and while recent protests there are not a threat to Communist party rule, they could affect his personal standing, US director of national intelligence Avril Haines said. Although China’s daily Covid cases are near all-time highs, some cities are taking steps to loosen testing and quarantine rules after Xi’s zero-Covid policy triggered a sharp economic slowdown and public unrest opposing Covid-19 lockdowns. Haines, speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in…
Zero Covid can’t continue in China. Reopening is the only way to quell public anger | Yu Jie
When President Xi Jinping was seen unmasked at the G20 summit in Indonesia, he maintained a largely positive tone with President Joe Biden and other world leaders. This left an impression that China was on the verge of withdrawing its zero-Covid strategy. A set of loosening policy measures introduced by Beijing seemed to further suggest that China was on track to reopen. As outlined in the 20th party congress, Xi wants to forge a pathway towards economic modernisation and this means building economic resilience and a further increase in household…
US and Canada urge China not to harm zero-Covid protesters amid calls for ‘crackdown’
The US and Canada have urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns as police clashed with demonstrators and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”. Protesters scuffled with police in the southern Chinese megacity of Guangzhou late on Tuesday night, according to witnesses and footage. Security personnel in hazmat suits formed ranks shoulder-to-shoulder, taking cover under riot shields, to make their way down a street in the southern city’s Haizhu district as glass smashed around them, videos posted on social media…
China targets older people in Covid-19 vaccination drive
Chinese health officials have announced a drive to accelerate vaccinations of older people against Covid-19, as police patrolled major cities to stamp out protests against the country’s strict zero-Covid policy. The low vaccination rate among older people is one of the major hurdles to easing the zero-Covid policy, which has eroded economic growth, disrupted the lives of millions, and sparked three days of unprecedented protests. At a regular press conference on Tuesday, officials said just 76.6% of people over 80 had received two vaccine doses, compared with more than 90%…
Depressed, powerless, angry: why frustration at China’s zero-Covid is spilling over
Victoria Li* has experienced several lockdowns since Covid emerged in China almost three years ago. Being a prisoner in her own home in Beijing made her feel depressed, powerless and angry. “Being stuck at home with my door sealed, I felt unmotivated to do anything,” she said. “I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to study. Sometimes, I crept into my bed and cried,” said the lawyer, who is in her 20s. Even when she was not in lockdown, the draconian restrictions upended her normal life. After a colleague…
Xi’s iron grip on his country is stopping the Covid U-turn it so desperately needs | Isabel Hilton
Last week, Covid-related images provoked outrage on Chinese social media: one showed a young woman kneeling on the ground with her hands tied behind her back after she and a friend had picked up a takeaway meal without first donning masks. Neither had Covid, neither was even a close contact, but both had been detained by the increasingly resented “big whites”, the hazmat-suited zero-Covid enforcers who bound the women’s hands and left them kneeling in the street, an exercise in humiliation that provoked indignation among China’s netizens. Meanwhile, Tianxiacheng community,…
Covid lockdown protests break out in western China after deadly fire
Protests have broken out in China’s far western Xinjiang region, with crowds shouting at hazmat-suited guards after a deadly fire triggered anger over their prolonged Covid-19 lockdown as nationwide infections set another record. Crowds chanted “End the lockdown“, pumping their fists in the air as they walked down a street, according to videos circulated on Chinese social media on Friday night. Reuters verified the footage was published from the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi. Videos showed people in a plaza singing China’s national anthem with its lyric “Rise up, those who refuse…