By Martin Quin Pollard and Liz Lee
BEIJINGNov.25 – Frustration has been felt in China among residents and business groups facing tighter control over the COVID-19, as the country posted another all-time high for daily infections on Friday, just weeks after measures were supposed to be eased.
The resurgence of cases of COVID-19 in China, with 32,695 new local infections recorded on Thursday as many cities report outbreaks, has sparked widespread lockdowns and other restrictions on movement and business, as well as backlash.
The French Chamber of Commerce in China has asked the authorities to properly implement the “optimization” measures of the COVID-19 announced two weeks ago, in a statement widely shared on social media after the French embassy posted it Thursday on its Twitter-like Weibo account.
The 20 measures, which include the reduction of quarantines and other more specific measures, had “given hope” to French companies to increase bilateral trade and economic exchanges, but “good policies must also be applied uniformly and without adding layers of other contradictory policies,” the House statement read.
The announcement of the 20 measures, even as surging cases prompted an increasingly forceful response under China’s stringent “zero contagion” approach, caused widespread confusion and uncertainty in major cities, including Beijing, where many residents are locked up at home.
At the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, more than 20,000 new employees have left following workers’ riots sparked by the COVID-19 this week, further jeopardizing production at Apple supplier Foxconn’s plant, according to a Reuters report on Friday.
References to a speech by a man in the southwestern city of Chongqing calling on the government to admit its mistakes on the COVID-19 were widely shared on Chinese social media, despite the work of censors.
“Give me freedom or death,” the bespectacled man told residents watching the gate of a compound in an impassioned speech on Thursday, according to video seen by Reuters.
“There is only one disease in the world and that is being poor and having no freedom,” he added. “Now we have both. We continue to suffer a little from the cold.”
The man was later seen being carried into a police car by security personnel, causing angry cries from onlookers.
Tags relating to the man, whom netizens dubbed a “hero of Chongqing,” were censored on Friday. But individual users continued to show their support by posting discreet messages or cartoon images of him.
¿APPROACHESALTERNATIVES?
As lockdowns affect more people, some residents are proposing alternative approaches for their communities. In Beijing, residents of some compounds shared suggestions on WeChat about how infected neighbors could self-quarantine at home if they didn’t show severe symptoms.
It is unclear whether such proposals would be successful.
Notices have also circulated online listing the circumstances in which health professionals can remove a person from their home, with the aim of informing people of their rights if they ask to be taken to a quarantine facility.
Louise Loo, an economist at Oxford Economics, said in a statement that reports of public dissatisfaction in provinces with partial or full lockdowns have strengthened, as was the case during the last major outbreak in April, although these “do not yet reflect the action.” large-scale collective.
“As before, we hope the authorities will be able to respond quickly to curb the social risk of an escalation of the protests, through a combination of tighter controls on information or a gradual easing of restrictions,” said Loo. .
Although the April outbreak was concentrated in Shanghai, clusters of cases are large and widely dispersed this time around.
The southern city of Guangdong and southwestern Chongqing had the most cases, although hundreds of new infections were reported daily in cities including Beijing, Chengdu, Jinan, Lanzhou, Xi’an and Wuhan.
Guangzhou, a southern city of nearly 19 million, has reported 7,524 new cases of local transmission, while Chongqing has reported 6,500 cases.
Beijing reported 1,860 cases on Thursday, while the northern city of Shijiazhuang saw numbers quadruple.
