At least we didn’t die: Beijing’s poorest battle Covid-19 and unemployment

China’s efforts to contain the deadly disease may have paid off but the economic impact of the travel restrictions and closed shops has pushed the nation’s most vulnerable to breaking point

‘I just pray for life to go back to normal,’ says 64-year-old street vendor Wang, who cares for her disabled husband but has been unable to work weeks

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Beijing is slowly getting back to normal but restrictions remain and its poorest citizens are paying the highest price. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 10:45am, 21 Mar 2020Updated: 11:37pm, 21 Mar 2020

Each morning as Wang Yimeng passes through the checkpoint at her residential compound in Beijing, she asks the people working there the same questions: “When will the checkpoints be removed? When can I have my breakfast stand back?”

Like thousands of others in the Chinese capital, the 64-year-old makes a basic living as a street vendor, selling hot egg pancakes for about 10 yuan (US$1.40) a time to people on their way to work.

Or at least she used to, before Covid-19, the deadly disease spread by the coronavirus, devastated people’s routines and her livelihood with it.

Since early last month, all of the gates to the residential area where she used to pitch her stall have been closed. The access points are manned by community workers and volunteers who check people’s body temperatures entering and leaving, and Wang was told she could no longer sell there.

“They told me I shouldn’t stand in the way of the government’s disease control work,” she said. “Community cadres asked me to be cooperative, or there’d be consequences. It was a warning.”

Before the controls were introduced Wang made about 2,000 yuan a month, enough for her to put food on the table and pay for the medicines her wheelchair-bound husband needs.

“I don’t complain, because we are still lucky compared to people who died of the disease,” she said.