Death of Shanghai health worker sparks online zero-Covid anguish
- Cause of death unconfirmed but the 55-year-old is regarded as a victim of China’s stringent measures to control the virus
- Grass-roots officials have been recorded expressing exhaustion and despair as they carry the burden of managing lockdowns
Qian Wenxiong, a cadre with the city’s Hongkou District Health Commission, died on Tuesday afternoon, according to a statement published on its official Weibo account on Thursday. He was 55.
“We are deeply saddened and mourn his tragic death. The commission has been the first to express condolences and concern to his family at home, and is helping handle the aftermath and other matters. Thank you all for your concern,” it said.
No details were given about how Qian died but the police did not deny that he killed himself – as authorities have done in other cases.
Neither the commission nor Shanghai city authorities could be reached for comment.
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Police in Shanghai scuffle with residents over Covid-19 quarantine measures
There is a widespread view online that the official took his own life because of the unbearable pressure at the front line of Shanghai’s health crisis.
Shanghai’s health community has been under mounting pressure as China’s largest and most prosperous financial centre struggles to contain the outbreak. More than 20,000 cases a day have been reported over more than 10 days.
Most of the city’s 25 million residents are trapped in their homes, and many have been complaining to the local Communist Party officials responsible for carrying out the strict health protocols in place for each neighbourhood.
Multiple phone conversations have been posted online with grass-roots officials in the city expressing their despair and exhaustion from the burden of implementing the zero Covid-19 policy.
Their job includes conducting regular mass testing in residential communities and relocating everyone who tests positive to one of the makeshift hospitals that have been built in recent weeks.
Many are working around the clock and some have threatened to resign, caught between the arduous load and the complaints of residents angry at the struggle to buy essentials during the lockdown.
Some vent their anger on social networks, and Qian’s death sparked another wave of emotion as Shanghai’s online community questioned its cause.
“I am speechless. The mortality rate of the virus is not high, but there are a lot of people who die because of epidemic prevention,” one Weibo user said.
The lockdown has seen many hospitals shut down or greatly restrict access to non-Covid patients. There have been numerous reports of deaths due to delayed treatment for patients with other conditions, as well as higher rates of mortality among the chronically ill and elderly.
In late March, a Shanghai nurse died after an asthma attack, when she was turned away by the hospital she worked for because its emergency unit was closed by the Covid-19 requirements.
