The Chinese government faced public anger on Thursday after the death of a momentary child attributed to overzealous policies and the implementation of the fight against COVID-19.
The four-month-old woman died after suffering vomiting and diarrhea while quarantined at a hotel in the central city of Zhengzhou, according to reports and social media posts. They said it took his father 11 hours to get help after the emergency hesitated to attend. They eventually sent her to a hospital a hundred kilometers (60 miles) away.
The death came after the ruling party vowed this month that others quarantined due to COVID-19 would not be spared emergency following a protest over the death of a three-year-old boy from carbon monoxide poisoning in the northwest. His father blamed fitness staff in the city of Lanzhou, who he said he tried to prevent him from taking his son to the hospital.
Netizens expressed anger over “zero covid” and demanded that Zhengzhou officials be punished for helping the public.
“Once again, someone died due to exaggerated epidemic prevention measures,” wrote one user on the popular Sina Weibo platform. “They put their official position above everything else. “
At a news conference, a fitness official said the government is looking to deal with “simple and crude” over-compliance in reaction to complaints from the public.
The government has won 130,000 complaints, adding local officials who unduly isolate those arriving from low-risk areas, according to the official, Shen Hongbing, deputy director of the National Bureau of Disease Control.
“We have solved the disorders reported by the masses,” Shen said. He mentioned the girl’s death in Zhengzhou.
The 4-month-old woman in Zhengzhou and her father were sent into quarantine on Saturday, according to reports and social media.
A social media account that said it was written by the father, known as Li Baoliang, said he started calling the hotline at noon Monday after she suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. care. The account says fitness staff at the quarantine site called an ambulance, but the team refused to treat them because the father had tested positive for the virus.
The woman nevertheless arrived at the hospital at 11 p. m. but died despite efforts to revive her, according to the account.
The account attributed to the father denounced that the emergency line had not acted correctly, that nearby hospitals were not willing to help, and that the hospital where they ended up did not provide them with “timely treatment” and gave him “seriously false” information.
“People in epidemic prevention and control, don’t they have hearts?” the Sina Weibo post said.
The Zhengzhou city government said the incident is under investigation, according to news reports.
Meanwhile, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday announced plans to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 other people to combat rising coronavirus outbreaks, even as the national government tries to reduce the influence of disease controls that have confined millions of others. to their homes.
Guangzhou, a city of thirteen million people and the largest of a series of hotspots in China with outbreaks since early October, reported 9680 new cases in the past 24 hours. This represented about 40% of the 23276 cases reported nationwide.
The number of infections in China is low compared to the United States and other primary countries, but the ruling Communist Party is seeking to isolate the case. Repeated closures of neighborhoods, schools and businesses are fueling public frustration and clashes with fitness workers.
“The epidemic scenario in Guangzhou is still very serious,” municipal official Wang Baosen said, according to the South Metropolis Daily.
The Guangzhou government sent another 95,300 people from the city’s Haizhu district to quarantine centers or for hospital treatment, the government said.
Access to the district for another 1. 8 million people was suspended last week following outbreaks, but some checks were lifted on Monday. Videos on social media indicating they had been shot dead in Guangzhou showed angry citizens breaking down barriers erected by white-clad gym workers.
Guangzhou will carry 246,407 beds, adding 132,015 in hospital isolation rooms and 114,392 for those who are inflamed but show no symptoms, the city government said. A series of immediate construction projects in China since the pandemic began in 2020 have built hospitals with thousands of beds in as little as a week.
A surge in infections has prompted officials in other parts of China to confine families in cramped apartments or order others to be quarantined if a single case is discovered in their neighborhood.
Guangzhou is one of many populous cities that have tried to respond to outbreaks with more flexible tactics.
The Communist Party last week promised to charge antivirus checks by reducing the length of quarantines and converting other rules. However, party leaders have said they will stick to the “zero COVID” strategy at a time when other countries are easing restrictions and looking to live with the virus.
That flexibility may only be a preparation for China’s reopening, but the timeline is unclear, Bank of America economists Helen Qiao, Benson Wu and Xiaoqing Pi said in a report. They pointed to Guangzhou, Chongqing and Shijiazhuang, all of which face outbreaks.
“Their responses and avenues for reopening will be helpful to other cities in their reopening,” they said. “Whatever measures they take, we expect a short-term surprise for local economic activities. “
Economists and fitness experts have said that “zero COVID” can be maintained for up to a year, as the government will have to vaccinate millions of seniors before it can lift restrictions that save the most foreign visitors to China.
A total of 1,659 cases were reported in Henan province, another hotspot where Zhengzhou is located, while access to a commercial area in Zhengzhou that houses the world’s largest iPhone factory was suspended this month following outbreaks. Apple Inc. said shipments of its new iPhone 14-style would be delayed.
In the capital, Beijing, access to Beijing University’s elite was suspended on Wednesday. People who visited a vegetable market in the southeast of the city where a case was discovered were quarantined in a hotel on their own. Some people bought groceries in shopping malls and work buildings. have been closed.