More than a million residents stood in over 100 degrees Celsius to be tested for the novel coronavirus as fires raged in the mountains around Chongqing, a metropolis in southwestern China. On that day in August, two cases were detected.
A week ago, in Xiamen, southeastern China, pandemic workers wiped the throats of fishermen before they inspected their fish and crab catches. A car was also stolen at an auto show in the southwestern city of Chengdu last week.
When a strong earthquake hit Chengdu on Monday, many residents’ first instinct was to ask for permission to leave their locked-down homes rather than flee for safety. ” Property Manager warned in a group chat. In Luding County, the epicenter of the quake that killed at least 86 people, the local government told residents to get tested daily.
As much of the world tries to pull itself out of the pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party is sticking by it, turning its zero-coronavirus policy into a political campaign that will mandate the participation of 1.4 billion people.
In a precarious life filled with lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing, the Chinese public is putting on a 24/7 show for one audience. The Communist Party Congress is next month.
Some play their roles with enthusiasm, others with indifference or resentment. No matter what, the Kafka-esque show must go on until Mr. Xi says, “Stop.”
The coronavirus-free campaign is perhaps the clearest demonstration of Xi’s power. He proved as capable of mobilizing the masses as Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, who initiated the Great Leap Forward and the Great Leap Forward. cultural revolution.
Mao didn’t care that people were starving to death or that the country was in chaos in these two disastrous campaigns. Xi seems unconcerned that his own campaign is highly disruptive, even if the coronavirus becomes less contagious.
His strategy contained the pandemic. China has recently reported less than 2,000 new infections daily, most of them asymptomatic. The country has reported 5,226 of her Covid-related deaths since early 2020, and he has not died since May, according to the National Health Board.
China’s authoritarian approach proved particularly effective during much of 2020 and 2021, when the United States and Europe suffered from high mortality and infection rates. , use it as evidence that China’s top-down model of governance is superior to that of liberal democracies. He refuses to abandon his old strategy of lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines in favor of learning to coexist with the milder variants that have emerged this year.
As of Tuesday, 49 Chinese cities had some form of lockdown measures, affecting about 292 million people, up from 161 million the week before, according to investment bank Nomura. It has suffered a serious economic blow. At the beginning of the year, Nomura expected China’s economy to grow by 4.3% in 2022, but after a series of lockdowns, he lowered his forecast to 2.7%.
The Communist Party has defended its policies, and relaxing Covid restrictions would lead to more infections in a country with limited medical resources and a large elderly population, 15% of whom are not fully vaccinated. It says it could. Party Said It will crack down on speech and actions that distort, question, or disapprove of policy.
Many Chinese buy into this narrative and are willing to act as foot soldiers in the Communist Party’s fight against the virus.
Last week, bus passengers in the northeastern city of Dalian scolded a man for simply wearing a surgical mask, rather than the N95 respirator mask the local government demanded in an announcement hours ago. According to people, they yelled at the man media“You are evil.” One of the passengers called the police, who removed him from the bus.
Dalian reported 40 Covid-infected cases that day, all asymptomatic. The next day, the government put her city of 7 million on lockdown and stopped all public transportation.
Technical writer shared on WeChat Position It’s a far cry from the horrifying story that many Chinese have been led to believe that he and his wife contracted Covid in Singapore last weekend and that, like the city-state, they are doing well. He declared the pandemic over in the country.
“You are fine,” commented a Beijing reader. Very selfish. I unfollowed you. 😡”
What gives the campaign its most Kafka character is that no matter how strange, ridiculous, or illogical the rules are, most people follow them without question.
When the Chinese national team played in the 2022 Asian Women’s Volleyball Cup in the Philippines last month, the players wore them as instructed by the leadership. mask Lost the first match against Iran. The team won the match after the players took off their masks.
A woman in a small city in northwestern China told me that after her husband and parents told her to stop complaining about COVID-19 restrictions, she argued repeatedly. Everyone was following the rules, they scolded her, why couldn’t you?
She shared photos and videos of pandemic life in her small town last week. A loudspeaker started blasting at 5am, urging residents to get tested. For hours, the same piercing instructions rang throughout the city. Finish at 9:00. “
Her five-year-old daughter has always wanted to be tested.
The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said she received a sticker after each Covid test and most people put it on the back of their phone. It could be a police officer, a volunteer, or a cartoonish drawing of a famous historical figure.
Residents must show the sticker to security guards at office buildings, residential complexes, shopping malls, and schools. Without it, they cannot move around.
Local governments are getting tougher at punishing people who don’t follow the zero Covid rule. restrained 5-10 days by the police for failing to get a Covid test. Police in northwestern Shaanxi province detained a 20-year-old man for five days in August. skipped I had two Covid tests and was on my bike. His actions “posed a risk of spreading the virus,” they said.
Pandemic workers in white protective suits have come to embody the absurdity and brutality of the campaign.
Nicknamed the Dabai, or Big White, they are everywhere.they rode horse riding Test the Tibetan herdsman.they walked To wipe the throat of a border guard in heavy snow in China’s westernmost county.they even regularly tested Staff at a Chinese research station in Antarctica.
There is no way to avoid the Big White.
In a video widely shared on Chinese social media, a giant, inflated Big White rose above the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first reported.
“White Terror” and “The Big White Is Watching You” are among the most appreciated comments. The same applies to “Try the Yangtze River Bridge”, which refers to the bridge in the video.
There is growing vigilance over how long the Zero Covid campaign will last and how ridiculous it will get.
Many people shared their thoughts on last week’s Weibo post by Wuhan coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang, who was punished by the government before dying of Covid in February 2020 after Chengdu went into lockdown. Did. The comments section has become something of a wailing wall for the country.
“Dr. Lee, the last three years under the pandemic have felt like a dusty life,” wrote user @dakouboluobao. “From anger to helplessness to paralysis. When will this end?”
“At first they weren’t willing to admit it was here. Now they are refusing to admit it’s gone,” commented user @lvqiuqiugaijianfeile.