By Nectar Gan, CNN
The death of a 3-year-old boy following an alleged fuel leak in a gated residential gated community in northwest China has sparked a new wave of outrage against the country’s strict zero-covid policy.
The boy’s father claimed in a social media post that Covid staff tried to prevent him from leaving his compound in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, to seek help for his son, leading to a delay that he said proved fatal.
A social media post through the father on Wednesday about his son’s death sparked a wave of anger and grief in the public, with several related hashtags racking up millions of views the next day on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
“Three years of pandemic have been his total life,” one comment reads.
It is the latest tragedy that has fueled a developing backlash that opposes China’s relentless zero-covid policy, which continues to disrupt life with relentless lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing mandates, even as the rest of the world emerges from the pandemic.
Many similar cases have affected others dying after being denied access to emergency medical care due to lockdowns, despite insistence by Chinese officials, adding leader Xi Jinping, that the country’s covid policies “put other people and their lives first. “
Large portions of Lanzhou, in addition to the domain where the boy’s circle of relatives lives, have been under lock and key since early October.
The boy’s father said his wife and son fell around noon Tuesday, with symptoms of fuel poisoning.
The father said he tried several times to call an ambulance and police, but was unable to communicate. He said he then went to seek help from Covid staff who were enforcing the lockdown on his compound, but he refused and said to seek help from leaders in his network. or keep calling an ambulance himself.
He said staff asked him to show a negative covid test result, but was unable to do so because no testing had been done at the resort in the past 10 days.
She became desperate and took her son outside, where a “kind-hearted” resident called a taxi to take them to the hospital, she wrote.
However, she arrived too late when they arrived and doctors were unable to save her son.
“My son would have been kept if he had been taken to the hospital earlier,” she wrote.
According to maps, the hospital is just 3 kilometers (1. 86 miles) from the boy’s home, or a 10-minute drive.
The father claimed in his social media post that police only showed up after taking his son to the hospital. But local police said Tuesday night they immediately rushed to the scene after receiving a call for help from the public and helped send two. people, adding the child, to the hospital 14 minutes later.
Police said the boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning and that the mother remained in hospital in good condition, but it was unclear whether the lockdown measures delayed his treatment.
CNN reached out to Lanzhou officials and the boy’s father for comment. The father replied.
On Thursday, the Lanzhou government issued a statement expressing sorrow over the boy’s death and its condolences to his family. They promised to “treat seriously” officials and cadres who failed to facilitate the timely rescue of the child.
“We have learned a painful lesson from this Array incident. . . and we will prioritize other people and their lives in our paintings in the future,” he said.
The boy’s death also sparked anger among citizens. Videos circulating on social media show citizens taking to the streets to demand a reaction from the authorities.
One shows a shout at officials wrapped from head to toe in hazmat protective suits. “Ask your boss to come here and tell us what happened today,” he shouts. In another, a man sings, “Give me back my freedom!
Other videos show several buses with SWAT officers arriving at the scene.
One shows rows of officials with hazmat attacks walking down the street; Several others show citizens at a dead end with uniformed police wearing shields and dressed in helmets and masks.
CNN can’t independently determine the videos, but a resident who lives nearby showed CNN he saw SWAT police enter.
“They were shouting ‘one, two, one’ (when walking down the street) so loud that they could be heard 500 meters away,” the resident said.
He lamented Lanzhou’s “prevention and excessive epidemic lockdowns” and what he called strict censorship.
“Now, even knowing the fact has an extravagant hope,” he said. “Who knows how many similar incidents have occurred across the country?”
In his social media post, the father said he approached him through someone claiming to have paintings for a “civil organization” and handed him 100,000 yuan (about $14,000) on the condition that he sign an agreement pledging not to hold the government accountable.
“I didn’t point it out. All I need is an explanation (for my son’s death),” she wrote. “I need (they) to tell me directly, why didn’t they let me pass then?”
The father’s posts on Weibo and Baidu, the online site, reporting on the incident disappeared Wednesday night.
El-CNN-Wire™
CNN’s Mengchen Zhang and Shawn Deng contributed to the report.
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