China sees outpouring of support for workers laid low by Beijing coronavirus outbreak, and online censors have stepped in
- Beijing has gone into ‘emergency response mode’ after detection of first local infections in five months
- Travel records of some infected individuals are casting a spotlight on how difficult it can be to make a living in the nation’s capital
As Beijing braces for a rise in coronavirus infections during the winter months, Chinese citizens are lamenting the hardships facing infected workers in the nation’s capital, based on newly disclosed descriptions of their circumstances.
Among the five confirmed cases and one asymptomatic infection reported over the weekend, all are migrant workers living in Nanfaxin township, in the city’s northeastern Shunyi district near Beijing Capital International Airport.
The district has more than a million residents, nearly half of whom are not locals. Most have blue-collar jobs.
The latest wave of local infections began when a 34-year-old man in Shunyi, surnamed Fu, tested positive for the virus. When his test results came back early on Wednesday morning, Fu was on a business trip to Ningbo, nearly 1,400km (870 miles) from home – and just three days before he was due to take his graduate school exam, according to his travel records released by the Beijing government.