Massed, in a row, wrapped in hot air. For a mandatory Covid test. It happens in the central area of Chongqing, in China of the ‘Zero Covid’ strategy, where the authorities have decided for mass testing, forcing – in the midst of a terrible heat wave – millions of people to stand in line for hours under the sun.
Chongqing, CNN reports, yesterday reported 40 cases of Covid-19, 146 in all since mid-month. And yesterday the authorities ordered more than 10 million inhabitants of the central districts of the city to undergo a Covid test, in one of the more than 3,800 hubs set up, on a day when they exceeded 40 degrees. To ensure that everyone complies with the order to undergo a check, the authorities have triggered the orange on the health codes of the inhabitants in a country where the green color code is indispensable for daily life.
Images shared on social media immortalize long queues and, CNN reconstructs, people fainting from the heat. A video shows a street with hundreds of people, mostly wearing masks, apparently waiting for a Covid test. In the background smoke from fires and a sky that is tinged with orange.
“It is 43 degrees, the people of Chongqing are already at the limit,” wrote a resident on Weibo. And Zeng Meng, 42, who lives in Chongqing, said he refused to take the test – an order that for him “is neither scientific nor reasonable nor legal” – and today it was impossible for Zeng to enter a supermarket. ‘ blocked by the orange sanitary code. Yesterday around the Asian giant, with a population of 1.4 billion people, 345 cases of local transmission of Covid-19 were confirmed and another 1,289 related to asymptomatic subjects. Official data reported by the Xinhua agency speak of 5,226 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
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