BEIJING (AP) — China’s government is seeking to quell protests over the death of a 3-year-old boy in a quarantined residential complex, which has increased public anger over antivirus tests that have confined millions of people to their homes. .
The boy died in a Lanzhou hospital of carbon monoxide poisoning attributed to a fuel leak. His father accused the gym staff who enforced the enclosure closure of refusing him and trying to arrest him as he took his son to the hospital.
The father’s social media account prompted angry comments about the human being from the ruling Communist Party’s “Zero COVID” strategy that confined families in cramped apartments for weeks to combat outbreaks.
The quarantine formula “is for life and health, not to confront those in need of rescue with obstacles,” said a post on the popular Sina Weibo social media service.
The ruling party is sticking to “Zero COVID” at a time when other governments are relaxing virus controls. This has kept the number of infections in China low, but is disrupting business and travel.
Residents of many parts of the northwestern region of Xinjiang were banned from leaving their homes in August and September. Residents of Urumqi and other cities who said they had run out of food and medicine called for help on social media.
Public frustration has turned into fights with police and in some places.
The Lanzhou city government expressed “deep sadness and regret” over the boy’s death and blamed “the weak emergency response. “He said public workers who answered incorrectly would be “treated seriously. “
The boy’s father said he tried to call an ambulance after his son collapsed Monday after an imaginable fuel leak at the home. Another thing and asked her to show a negative check for the virus. The father wrote that he eventually took his son by taxi to the hospital, where doctors failed to revive him.
A city government on its social media account said investigators discovered a worker at a community checkpoint who told the father to call the emergency number when he asked for help.
Lanzhou Mayor Zhang Weiwen visited the district on Thursday and vowed to “open the ‘last mile’ so they can seek treatment,” the state-run Lanzhou Daily newspaper reported.
The government pledged to “deeply inform the painful classes of this accident,” the newspaper said.
The public, businesses and foreign investors are watching for signs that the ruling party would possibly ease restrictions on the economy and make it harder to enter and exit China.
The ruling party’s newspaper, the People’s Daily, last month tried to dispel hopes for an immediate relaxation, saying “Zero COVID” was working and mentioning fitness experts who said it will have to stay in place.
Despite this, Chinese corporate percentage costs rose in Hong Kong on Tuesday after a rumor circulated on social media that a “reopening committee” could be set up to review easing restrictions. Prices fell after the government verified the rumor.
On Friday, Hong Kong’s stock value soared after an official newspaper said the Ministry of Public Health was seeking to reduce the costs of antivirus measures and that a city with the world’s largest iPhone factory promised to ease restrictions.
Health experts and economists say “Zero COVID” is expected to remain in position until 2023, in part because of the need to vaccinate millions of seniors before Beijing can relax requirements that others entering China will have to quarantine for a while. week or more.
This week, a commercial domain in the central city of Zhengzhou, which is home to Apple Inc. ‘s largest iPhone meeting plant, was suspended due to infections.
The National Health Commission said this week that the country will have to control outbreaks “with the minimum scale of affected and the shortest time and lowest cost imaginable,” according to the Global Times, published through the ruling People’s Daily.
This is aimed at “correcting errors in overly strict measures that have damaged people’s property and lives,” the Global Times reported on Thursday.
Among other changes, passengers on Beijing-bound trains from the southern region of Guangxi near Hong Kong no longer want to send nucleic acid test results, the newspaper said.
The ruling party responded to court cases over the main “Zero COVID” charge by switching earlier this year to a plan that isolates buildings or neighborhoods from entire cities after cases were detected.
However, after outbreaks in Shanghai in March, most of the city’s 25 million citizens were confined to their homes for two months. More recently, families have been confined to their homes for weeks after the outbreaks.
On Monday, visitors to Shanghai Disneyland were temporarily prevented from leaving the park as part of virus testing that the city says spread to about 439,000 people. The city’s fitness firm said all visitors tested negative.
In Hengzhou, a city of 12. 5 million people in Henan province, the government said Thursday that restrictions were being eased as the government tried to detect and isolate new cases.
On Wednesday, access to a commercial domain adjacent to Zhengzhou airport was suspended for a week following the outbreaks.
Thousands of workers collecting Apple’s iPhone 14 at a factory operated through Foxconn Technology Group left last month following court cases involving fallen colleagues who failed to get medical help. The company later said it had imposed “closed-loop management,” an official term. for workers who live in their office and have no outdoor contact.
Foxconn said the Zhengzhou plant works, but the company and Apple did not respond to questions about how production and shipments would be affected.
The authorities aim to “restore order in production and life” and “will try to end this cycle of the epidemic as soon as possible,” Li Huifang, deputy secretary-general of the Zhengzhou city government, told a news conference, according to The Paper. a Shanghai media outlet.