Coronavirus: be more patient with China’s zero-Covid drive, People’s Daily urges
- A commentary in the Communist Party mouthpiece says confidence is ‘more important than gold’ in fight against the epidemic
- China is reporting more Covid cases after the national public holiday
“Confidence is more important than gold in the fight against the epidemic … the prevention and control guidelines are effective against the Omicron variant,” the commentary said.
Extreme zero-Covid rules in China ahead of Communist Party congress
The commentary came ahead of the 20th party congress, which begins on Sunday, and follows a long public holiday that saw a spike in domestic travel as coronavirus cases climbed. Nearly 2,000 infections were reported on Sunday, with 373 local confirmed cases and 1,566 asymptomatic cases.
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But public patience for the strict measures is wearing thin, as sudden lockdowns spark shortages in food and other essential items, while travel and work has been severely disrupted.
Public anger hit a new level after a bus that had been transporting residents from the southern city of Guiyang, in Guizhou, to an isolation facility in another city crashed in the middle of the night killing 27 people.
China’s economy will suffer if local cadres don’t dare adapt policies
“We must optimise epidemic prevention and control initiatives, and further improve them to be more scientific, precise and effective to minimise the impact on economic development and the normal life of the public, and to increase confidence and patience in our current epidemic prevention and control policies,” the commentary said.
Local governments are resorting to strict punishment, sometimes even police detention, to deal with control violations.
Authorities in Tongzhou district in the capital Beijing said people who violate home quarantine rules will be sent to extended central isolation at their own expense.
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A man infected with the Omicron variant BF.7 was under investigation in Shaoguan, in Guangdong province, on Sunday after he spat on a street without mask. That had resulted in several other people being infected, “posing a significant transmission risk across the city”, authorities said.
In eastern Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, six employees from two shopping malls were detained on Sunday for failing to ask customers to register their visits to the malls on a mobile app, after one of the customers turned out to be infected.
