Thousands of COVID-19-negative Beijing residents were forcibly relocated to quarantine hotels overnight due to a handful of infections, as the Chinese capital begins to take more extreme control measures resembling virus-hit Shanghai.
Beijing has been battling its worst outbreak since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 1,300 since late last month, leading city restaurants, schools and tourist attractions to be closed indefinitely.
China’s strategy to achieve zero COVID-19 cases includes strict border closures, lengthy quarantines, mass testing and rapid, targeted lockdowns.
More than 13,000 residents of the locked-down Nanxinyuan residential compound in southeast Beijing were relocated to quarantine hotels overnight on Friday due to 26 new infections discovered in the past few days, according to photographs and a government notice widely shared on social media.
“Experts have determined that all Nanxinyuan residents undergo centralized quarantine beginning midnight May 21 for seven days,” authorities from Chaoyang district said on Friday. “Please cooperate, otherwise you will bear the corresponding legal consequences.”
Social media photos showed hundreds of residents with luggage lining up in the dark to board buses parked outside the compound.
“Some of us have been locked down for 28 days since April 23, and we all tested negative throughout,” one resident wrote on Sina Weibo. “A lot of my neighbors are elderly or have young children.”
“The transfer really makes us feel like we’re in a wartime scene,” resident and real estate blogger Liu Guangyu posted on Weibo early yesterday.
Residents were told to pack their clothes and essential belongings, and that their homes would be disinfected afterward, according to screenshots shared on Weibo.
Last month, thousands of negative Shanghai residents were bused to makeshift quarantine centers hundreds of kilometers away as the metropolis of 25 million doubled down on efforts to contain the spread of the virus.
Weibo users expressed widespread anxiety that Beijing authorities were taking a similar approach to Shanghai, where residents have chafed under a months-long lockdown that has denied many people adequate access to food and medical care.
The Weibo hashtag “All residents of Nanxinyuan compound were dragged to quarantine” was blocked by yesterday morning.
“This is exactly the same as Shanghai, the first step is to cut off water and electricity, then demand keys ... then disinfect homes. Electrical appliances, wooden furniture, clothes, food — they’re all done for,” read one comment.
Beijing authorities yesterday extended work from home guidance to one more district, one day after halting the vast majority of public bus and subway services.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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