![]() ![]() On top of that, hospitals in the city are demanding a negative COVID-19 test before seeing patients, which has already resulted in incidents such as a pregnant woman miscarrying, a heart attack victim dying for lack of treatment, and injured children waiting over a day to see a doctor. Most top-tier personnel in Xian are supervising the city’s mass testing, leaving less-qualified personnel struggling to fill the gaps. The Chinese hospital system is tiered: The most qualified doctors and nurses work in central, rich hospitals, and less qualified ones work in outlying hospitals and community centers. Xian’s health care system is also under strain-not from coronavirus cases, but from the pressure of mass testing and bureaucratic requirements. The Xian government will likely see more firings-and possibly prosecutions-as it pays the cost of public failure. Two senior Yanta officials have been fired Christian Goebel, an expert on Chinese local government, points out that this follows a pattern of the central government scapegoating locals for failures. 17 and briefly reopened before the citywide shutdown. The worst shortages seem to be in the central district of Yanta, a wealthy and densely populated area that was put in localized lockdown on Dec. It helps that many households stocked up on supplies this past November after the central government warned that winter lockdowns were likely. The government has started supplying vegetables to compounds, where local committees distribute them to residents, especially the elderly. One household member is usually allowed to make a grocery run every two days, but most stores are closed, and those that are open are understocked. Many stories from Xian resemble those from the first weeks of lockdowns in January and February 2020.įood is a key issue. The scale of the lockdown in Xian has caused significant problems, resulting in small but angry outcries from locals popping up online-usually centered around groceries. Centralized quarantine was a vital part of the success of the 2020 lockdown, significantly reducing household spread. China has also imposed centralized quarantine measures, in which COVID-19 patients and those exposed to the virus stay in mandated facilities. Even before 2020, the state had implemented surveillance infrastructure for political control, using technology ranging from simple cameras to facial recognition.Ĭhinese cities rely on many people to implement lockdowns, including police, chengguan (security personnel who enforce regulations, often harassing street vendors), and residents’ committees. Rural villages often have only a single road out. Most urban Chinese live in walled compounds with large apartment buildings, with controllable entry and exit points. ![]() Pandemic lockdowns have proved especially effective in China for several reasons. It is not yet confirmed if any of the cases are the omicron variant, but given the speed of the outbreak, it seems possible. Apart from a small number of essential workers, residents can only leave their homes for very limited grocery runs.Īround 1,800 people with confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 cases are in centralized quarantine as of Saturday, so were over 42,000 close contacts. 23, 2021, amid China’s worst COVID-19 outbreak since 2020. ![]() On Wednesday, the 13 million people of Xian, China’s ancient capital, entered their 14th day of lockdown. ![]()
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