BEIJING — Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food. Supermarkets stayed open late. Residents stood in long lines for mandatory tests.
A new coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese capital has raised concerns that, after Shanghai, Beijing could become the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. The central government relied heavily on lockdowns, despite the high social and economic costs, in pursuing Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy to eradicate infections.
On Monday morning, the National Health Commission said 47 cases of coronavirus had been found in Beijing since Friday. Three-fifths were in Chaoyang district, which ordered all 3.5 million residents to undergo three PCR tests in the next five days. Mass tests in response to the first cases of coronavirus have sometimes been a prelude to severe lockdowns in other cities, such as the four-week lockdown in Shanghai that has sparked widespread complaints from residents there.
The outbreak in Beijing, the seat of power of the Communist Party and a crowded metropolis, has given added meaning to Mr Xi, who had ordered the country’s capital to remain free of the virus. An extended lockdown there would increase political and economic pressure on his government.
“Chaoyang district is now the main focus for pandemic prevention,” Beijing Communist Party secretary Cai Qi and a protege of Mr Xi, said in instructions quoted in Beijing’s official newspaper on Sunday. . Mr Cai seemed determined to show that Beijing would not hesitate to take steps to suppress infection, which has been expressed by some in Shanghai.
“Key pandemic measures cannot wait until the next day,” added Mr. Cai. “All high-risk locations and individuals involved in these matters should be checked that day.”
Cases have been spreading in the community for a week, with multiple rounds of handovers, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, said at a news conference on Sunday.
Chaoyang is the city’s trendiest area, with countless luxury shopping centers and exorbitantly expensive apartments. At Shin Kong Place, a shopping center with stores for brands like Chanel, Saint Laurent and Versace, long lines quickly formed at the expensive supermarket as families rushed to stock up on food.
At a PCR test booth on the street a block away, dozens of people were still queuing at 8 p.m. Sunday when the workers inside, in full-body white hazmat suits, announced they would be closing for the night. The closing of the booth provoked anger among the people who stood in the dark waiting for the tests, the results of which are usually returned within 12 hours. Many yelled at the staff, and several punched and kicked the cab and tried to break the door and argue with the staff.
Chaoyang had not demanded that residents be tested on Sunday evening instead of Monday. But without new test results, residents will not be allowed to take a train or flight to another city before a possible lockdown is imposed. When Beijing had a minor outbreak in the summer of 2020, people rushed to train stations to leave the city before they could get trapped inside.
Beijing officials hope to avoid the Shanghai experience, where a stifling lockdown this month has tarnished China’s economic prospects and sparked public anger. Residents have shared bleak stories and criticism of the lockdown through online letters, a rap song and a bleak video.
“We Shanghai residents feel that many absurd, baffling and even cruel mandatory measures have been taken,” said Ji Xiaolong, a resident of the city who has publicly criticized the government’s handling of the lockdown.
“At the beginning of the lockdown, 80 percent of people approved it and government policy,” said Mr. Ji in a telephone interview, pointing out the difficulties of getting food and medical care. “Now I estimate that less than 20 percent still support the government shutdown.”
Party leaders, however, seem determined to defend their goal of “zero Covid” – virtually no infections in general in Chinese society.
On Monday, Shanghai’s health authorities said the city had confirmed 19,455 cases the previous day, down 1,603 from the previous daily count. The city has allowed residents of some areas deemed safe to go outside, but leaders have warned that the broader restrictions must remain in place until the infections are eradicated.
“Shanghai is now at a pivotal moment in the zero offensive,” Sun Chunlan, China’s deputy prime minister overseeing the lockdown, said last week. “The pandemic is not waiting for people, and there can be no question of putting our feet up and taking a breather.”
Residents in Shanghai’s Pudong district shared photos over the weekend of new metal fences and cage-like barriers going up around apartment exits, part of the district’s drive to enforce “tough” insulation for enclosed buildings.
A highlight of public backlash against the city’s policies was “Sounds of April,” a six-minute video that – set against melancholy music and black-and-white images of Shanghai – plays the voices of residents begging for help from officials. The video spread quickly and widely on Chinese social media last week before censorship took it down.
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It starts with Shanghai officials saying last month a lockdown wouldn’t be necessary, then it would only last a few days.
Then comes a montage of voices: a truck driver transporting food for the stricken city who says his shipment is in danger of rotting because no one has come to receive it; a son who says his elderly and ailing father has been denied hospital care; a resident forced into quarantine in an unfinished hospital; a local official who asks for understanding from a man whose pleas for medical help have gone unanswered.
The video had quickly circulated among residents of Shanghai, suggesting widespread disregard for official news media coverage of the crisis, Mr. ji.
“This video pulled the fig leaf off these powers,” he said. “At this point of the crisis, the people of Shanghai have started to work together.”
Some critics of Shanghai’s response are high-ranking members of the academic establishment who tend to keep their views muted.
In a government submission circulated through Chinese news media, Tang Xiaotian, a professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, warned that officials may need to avoid illegal measures to detain people. Residents are outraged by measures such as the barriers around apartments that could impede escape in the event of fire, he noted.
Official propaganda about the Shanghai lockdown had “damaged the government’s credibility,” Liu Xiaobing, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics who is a member of China’s national legislature, wrote in an essay on Chinese social media. media has been shared. This was also later removed. He did not respond to an email asking for comment.
“Policy enforcers are only concerned about the problems they could put themselves on if they loosen controls,” wrote Mr. Liu. “They never worry about being held accountable for the damage caused by strict restrictions.”
Li You research contributed.
