The number of infections marks a maximum of the entire pandemic and exceeds 31,000 daily, causing the confinement of millions of people
The ‘covid zero’ strategy that China implemented almost three years ago with the Wuhan lockdown has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. But it has lost its effectiveness with the appearance of the omicron variant: this Thursday 31,527 infections were registered, the highest number since the pandemic broke out. Neither the tests that the population has to do every 48 hours to lead a normal life, nor the confinements that are dictated at different administrative levels -from specific urbanizations to entire neighborhoods- have managed to stop a wave that threatens to lead to a tsunami. Not only health, but also social and political. Because citizen discontent is multiplying as much as the virus and has already broken out in violent demonstrations that worry the Government.
A good example of the impact that the ‘zero covid’ strategy is having on different areas of life in China is what is happening at the Taiwanese Foxconn factory, in the city of Zhengzhou, where 674 infections were registered on Wednesday. The detection of an outbreak in the main global manufacturing center of the iPhone caused a couple of weeks ago the confinement of the facilities, which continued to operate with employees forced to stay in them day and night. It was then that some workers decided to escape, for fear of the virus or the confinement itself, and walk for days to get to their homes, dodging the control exercised by the mobile health application, a QR code that is scanned everywhere and that, if turns red, prevents access to any place or public service.
Protests around the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, the main manufacturing center for iPhones, are heating up. China’s zero covid begins to break out in different parts of the country. Many affected Chinese say enough is enough.pic.twitter.com/EGcWqL5ir7
Zigor Aldama 齐戈 (@zigoraldama) November 23, 2022
The technology giant offered economic incentives to its 200,000 employees to avoid problems in a production that, despite everything, it has not managed to keep stable and will affect Apple’s stocks ahead of the Christmas campaign. However, now many employees are up in arms because they say they do not receive the promised payments and that they cannot leave the factory either. Not in vain, in the end the authorities have decided to confine six million inhabitants in Zhengzhou for at least five days, more than half the population of the capital of Henan province.
Shouting ‘we want to go home!’, on Wednesday, very unusual scenes in China took place in the vicinity of the plant: hundreds of Foxconn workers confronted the Police with iron bars and stones, who were forced to to call for reinforcements and use riot gear. Today the company has apologized, has attributed the delay to a bug that has already been fixed in its payment system, and the situation seems to be under control in Zhengzhou. But the demonstrations spread throughout the country’s geography with sparks of different magnitudes.
The protests around the Zhengzhou iPhone factory are intensifying a lot. Some claim Chinese authorities have reddened workers’ health codes so they can’t move freely. This can get out of hand. pic.twitter.com/zZtdB1kRZ6
Zigor Aldama 齐戈 (@zigoraldama) November 23, 2022
Economic impact
In Guangzhou, one of China’s main industrial centers, hundreds of residents took to the streets last week to denounce the economic impact that the confinement has on their lives, going so far as to tear down the fences that delimit the quarantine zones and overturn vehicles. of cop; In many other towns, residents of urbanizations or residents of confined neighborhoods complain about the difficulties in acquiring food or the arbitrariness with which the neighborhood committees work, and they do the impossible to bypass the confinements. «I am a legal person in every possible way, but I will not allow them to lock me up in a hotel because I have been in a building where a case has been detected. It is ridiculous, ”says a young man with the surname Jie from Shanghai who sees a more political than a health aspect in all the restrictions. “They want to keep us under control,” he says.
Despite the fact that different localities have timidly tried to live with the virus, the experiment has always ended up being nipped in the bud, and the Chinese power leadership has reaffirmed its strict implementation of ‘zero covid’ on several occasions, brandishing the flag of ‘save lives at all costs’. Although China has already vaccinated 90% of the population, the remaining 10% belong above all to the most vulnerable stratum, those over 60 years of age, who are reluctant to inject themselves. And the Government fears the consequences that this may have in a health system that is still not very solid.
Information is also restricted
“I have been speechless with the stadiums overflowing with people without a mask or any restriction in the World Cup.” Feng, a thirty-year-old from Shanghai, admits that she is afraid of the coronavirus. “We have been led to believe that it causes a lethal disease, but I have more and more doubts,” she says. To a large extent, because she communicates with friends abroad.
“They tell me that they lead a completely normal life and that we are the Chinese who maintain illogical measures. I thought that you Westerners were irresponsible, but it is true that, with the vaccines, I don’t know why we have more and more quarantines. It seems that we are back at the starting point », he laments.
In China’s social networks and media, the slogan is to praise the ‘covid zero’ policy and minimize its economic impact. This Thursday a study concluded that 20% of the country’s GDP is stopped, a volume similar to that which was stopped during the confinement of Shanghai, between March and April. However, different videos and critical messages manage to bypass censorship and inflame spirits.
“We see many excesses and abuses of authority. Although the videos are deleted, many arrive and we are increasingly against the restrictions, “says Feng. “I would like to know what situation the hospitals are in, because I am beginning to fear that more people are dying from the measures against the covid than from the virus,” says the young thirty-year-old from Shanghai.
Many are those who think like her. Although the fear of the coronavirus persists, Chinese citizens are increasingly asking uncomfortable questions for the Government. “Are we going to live like this forever? Are they going to have us permanently controlled with our mobile phones? When can we renew the passport to leave the country? Why is there no aid for those affected by the confinements like in Europe? » Lists Feng, increasingly annoyed with her leaders.
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