China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid is beginning to thin in the eastern city of Yangzhou, much of which has been in lockdown since the beginning of the month.
Over the weekend, a man got into an argument with a group of volunteers at a roadblock. After the video of the altercation was widely shared online, some residents complained that they couldn’t go out to buy their own food and had to rely on volunteers to deliver products that some people claimed were rotten.
Beijing initially made efforts to eradicate an outbreak that began on July 21 and quickly spread to half of China’s provinces and autonomous regions, exposing some of the limitations of its approach to pandemic control.
The outbreak, which spread quickly and often through asymptomatic cases, has presented the biggest challenge yet for Chinese officials since the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan early last year. At one point, some domestic health experts even called for a different Covid approach.
Despite the criticism, China’s National Health Commission on Monday reported zero new cases for the first time since the start of this latest outbreak.
But the approach has sparked frustration and anger among those who have had to scrap plans as officials turned to the same playbook they used last year: limiting travel, testing and detecting infections, and locking people up in their homes. Millions of Zhengzhou residents had to queue for virus testing. In Nanjing, where Delta cases first emerged, residents had to submit to four consecutive tests.
In Yangzhou, a partial lockdown restricted the movement of millions of residents. Later, officials doubled, preventing families from leaving their homes.
“After our joint efforts in the previous phase, now is the time when we have to bite our teeth the most to try the hardest and fight everything at once,” Xu Lincan, a senior official from Yangzhou, said in the statement. state media last. week.
It was this tough approach that seemed to cause one man to lash out over the weekend after stopping at a roadblock near his property. After volunteers checked his identification and documentation, the man hit one of them on the head, according to a police report.
In the video of the brawl posted online, a group of volunteers in red vests appeared to attack the man. A volunteer kicked the man in the head, face and chest. He was later fined and detained for 10 days. The other volunteers were also fined, police said.
In other developments around the world:
New Zealand has extended its national lockdown until the end of Friday, with an additional four-day closure for the city of Auckland. The country announced 35 new cases in the community on Monday, bringing the total reported in the current outbreak to 107, mostly in Auckland. They are all believed to be the more contagious Delta variety.
Natasha Frost reporting contributed.
