BEIJING (AP) — Chinese censors on Friday removed reports of the death of a teenager in a quarantine center after the case sparked anger and led citizens to question the country’s “zero-COVID” policy. Zero-tolerance anti-coronavirus strategy, responding to dozens of outbreaks with lockdowns and sending entire neighborhoods to makeshift quarantine facilities.
The public has been angry at the viral restrictions, responding to additional closures with demonstrations, while fights have broken out between citizens and officials.
Messages circulated on Chinese social media this week saying a 14-year-old woman died in the central city of Ruzhou after falling into a quarantine center and being denied medical attention.
The reports sparked renewed anger at a sensitive time for the country’s leaders. China’s political elite is holding a key Communist Party assembly in Beijing this week, which is expected to secure President Xi Jinping a historic third term while the country’s propaganda and security apparatus are underway. Maximum alert for any source of instability.
Unverified videos on the Chinese edition of TikTok gave the impression of showing the mendacity of a user in a bunk bed suffering from seizures, while others in the room screamed for help.
“At first, the girl was fine. . . Then he went (to quarantine) for 4 days and had a high fever and now he’s gone,” one woman described in other videos as the girl’s aunt told the audience through tears.
The woman says she “had seizures, vomiting and high fever, and did not receive medical attention in time,” and complained that the local government did not respond to calls while the child was in critical condition.
AFP may simply not independently determine that Ruzhou city’s videos and calls for propaganda, fitness and COVID prevention went unanswered on Friday.
Chinese media, which has paid superficial attention to lockdown scandals in the past, has remained remarkably silent this week on the Ruzhou case.
By Friday afternoon, censors removed all lines of the incident from the Chinese internet as much as possible, disabled Weibo hashtags for “Ruzhou Girl” and “Ruzhou Girl Dies in Quarantine” and most videos mentioning the girl’s alleged death.
The hashtag page for “Ruzhou Girl” had registered 255,000 views and 158 posts as of Friday morning, according to official statistics at the top of the page, only four posts remained visible before the page was completely blocked later that day.
“Have Shanghai classes been so absolutely forgotten?”He asked about one of the last remaining posts on the page, referring to the megacity’s closure in the spring that left others without enough food or supplies.
The poster asked why “there wasn’t even a doctor to see a woman who needed to see one. “
The incident comes a month after another 27 people died in a twist of traffic fate while being transported earlier to a quarantine center in rural Guizhou province.
And in the run-up to Congress, censors removed virtually all references to reports of a rare protest in Beijing, which referred to banners denouncing President Xi, as well as COVID policies.