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Coronavirus China
People & CultureSocial Welfare

Covid tests for dead people: grumbles in China amid tightening pandemic prevention measures and punishments

  • Shenzhen’s only funeral home company is asking for Covid-19 tests for corpses from “high risk” areas
  • In Shanghai, a person’s PhD career was sabotaged for playing with a cat without gloves

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A woman takes a Covid-9 test in Beijing. Photo: Getty Images
Mandy Zuo

A series of Covid-19 prevention measures such as testing corpses for the coronavirus in Shenzhen is stirring mockery and griping from Chinese people who have endured massive disruptions to their lives since the Omicron variant landed on its doorstep.

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In Shanghai, which has become the face of China’s strict Covid-19 prevention policies, residents are finding themselves tasked with navigating a bureaucratic maze as the city slowly starts to ease lockdowns.
An information hotline set up for expatriates saw an 812-per-cent jump in the number of calls during the city’s two-month lockdown, with most questions concerning Covid-19 quarantine and testing policies.

A PhD student in the city was named and shamed because she played with a stray cat on campus without wearing gloves, which was considered to be a dangerous activity that could cause a coronavirus outbreak.

People attend a ‘Covid friendly’ funeral in Wuhan. Photo: Getty Images
People attend a ‘Covid friendly’ funeral in Wuhan. Photo: Getty Images

Shanghai Jiao Tong University issued a notice on Wednesday that said the student, surnamed Meng, would be disqualified from receiving any academic awards for breaching the university’s Covid-19 rules.

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Meng was accused of “causing risks of spreading the coronavirus” and “being extremely irresponsible for themself, classmates and the university” by “using grass to tease a stray cat without wearing gloves”, the notice read.

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