China is again forcing thousands of people into government COVID-19 quarantine centers this week as the brutal, six-week lockdown in Shanghai is only partially being eased.
Videos from Liuanzhuang, a village in northern Tianjin, showed residents being warned over a loudspeaker that they had to pack their belongings ready to be carted off to isolation centers, Bloomberg noted.
Other clips on social media showed crowds of people being marched through streets and onto buses — a day after just 22 cases had been detected in mass testing there, the outlet said.
By Tuesday, the total number of infections had risen to just 55 — but social media posts said that between 10,000 to 30,000 residents had been forced into quarantine.
The subway system in Tianjin — home to northern China’s largest port — was also partly closed “in accordance with the needs of disease control”, according to Agence France-Presse, citing state broadcasters.
The corralling into government centers is just the latest harsh move by China, which has stuck to a fierce “zero-COVID” approach at the slightest outbreak, even as the rest of the world opens up.
The city of Guang’an in southwestern Sichuan province was also locked down on Wednesday after about 150 new cases, officials said.
In capital Beijing, which reported 55 new cases, some subway stations and bus lines are closed, dining in restaurants is banned and residents are strongly encouraged to work from home.
In the largest city, Shanghai, the six-week lockdown where most residents were unable to leave their homes, even for groceries, is still only slightly being eased.
The outbreak there has taken 580 lives, according to official statistics, making it the deadliest one in China since the initial outbreak in the city of Wuhan in early 2020.
On Sunday, 20 subway lines in four of the cities under lockdown were reopened, while officials promised to also restart 273 bus lines connecting major urban centers, airports, train stations and hospitals.
Many residents mocked an announcement that Shanghai had “achieved zero-Covid at the community level,” even as they remain stuck at home, Bloomberg noted.
The city of 25 million people recorded about 700 new cases on Wednesday, accounting for most of the about 1,000 cases nationwide.
Although most downtown areas remain in some form of lockdown, some of Shanghai’s outlying suburbs were showing signs of normalcy.
After parts of the financial hub were doused in chemical disinfectant in recent weeks, a city official in charge warned against “excessive” sterilization, Bloomberg said. Zhu Renyi urged workers not to spray disinfectant on people, use drones to spritz outdoor areas or put sterilizing tablets into the sewers, according to Bloomberg.
