Chinese authorities faced more public anger yesterday after a second child’s death was blamed on overzealous anti-virus enforcement, adding to frustration at controls that are confining millions of people to their homes and sparked fights with health workers.
The four-month-old girl died after experiencing vomiting and diarrhea while in quarantine at a hotel in the central city of Zhengzhou, according to news reports and social media posts.
They said it took her father 11 hours to get help after emergency services balked at dealing with them and she finally was sent to a hospital 100km away.
Photo: Reuters
The girl and her father were sent into quarantine on Saturday, according to news reports and social media.
An account on social media that said it was written by the father, identified as Li Baoliang, said he started calling the emergency hotline at noon on Monday after his daughter developed vomiting and diarrhea.
It said the hotline said the girl was not sick enough to need emergency care.
The account said health workers at the quarantine site called an ambulance, but the crew refused to deal with them because the father tested positive for COVID-19.
The girl finally arrived at a hospital at 11pm, but died despite efforts to revive her, the account said.
The account attributed to the father complained the emergency hotline acted improperly, nearby hospitals were not ready to help and the hospital where they ended up failed to provide “timely treatment” and gave him “seriously false” information.
The Zhengzhou city government said the incident was under investigation, according to news reports.
The death came after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) this month promised that people in quarantine would not be blocked from getting emergency help following an outcry over a three-year-old boy’s death from carbon monoxide in the northwest.
His father blamed health workers in the city of Lanzhou, who he said tried to stop him from taking his son to a hospital.
Internet users expressed anger at the CCP’s “zero COVID-19” strategy and demanded that officials in Zhengzhou be punished for failing to help the public.
“Once again, someone died because of excessive epidemic prevention measures,” one user wrote on the Sina Weibo platform. “They put their official post above everything else.”
“Epidemic prevention and control people, do you not have a heart?” another post said.
The CCP promised last week to ease quarantine and other restrictions under its “zero COVID-19” strategy, which aims to isolate every infected person.
However, Chinese leaders are trying to dispel hopes the measures might end as other governments ease controls and try to live with the virus.
“Zero COVID-19” has kept China’s infection numbers lower than those of the US and other major countries, but shuts down neighborhoods, schools and businesses for weeks at a time. Residents of some areas complain they are left without food and medicine.
A spike in infections over the past two weeks has led officials in areas across China to confine families to their cramped apartments or order people into quarantine if a single case is found in their workplace or neighborhood.
Yesterday, the government reported 23,276 new cases in areas throughout the country; 20,888 of them with no symptoms.
That included a total of 9,680 in this week’s biggest hot spot, the southern business center of Guangzhou, near Hong Kong.
Videos on social media this week that said they were shot in Guangzhou showed angry residents knocking over barriers set up by white-garbed health workers. The 1.8 million residents of the city’s Haizhu District were confined to their homes last week, but some restrictions were lifted on Monday.
A total of 1,659 cases were reported in Henan Province, another hot spot where Zhengzhou is located.
Access to a Zhengzhou industrial zone that is home to the world’s biggest iPhone factory was suspended this month following outbreaks. Apple Inc said deliveries of its new iPhone 14 model would be delayed.
‘CHINESE ASSET’: The senate cited Bamban Mayor Alice Guo in contempt after a police raid revealed a scam center operating at a facility on land she partially owned The Philippine Senate yesterday threatened to arrest a mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates. The arrest threat came after Bamban Mayor Alice Guo (郭華萍) failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress. The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo’s farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines. It gained national attention after one senator asked whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese “asset,” an accusation she
‘DO WHATEVER’: US Representative Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC the decision was up to Joe Biden, but her lack of a full statement backing him is likely to send a signal The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday hit new trouble as US Representative Nancy Pelosi said merely “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run, and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to challenge former US president Donald Trump. Late in the evening, US Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because “the stakes could not be higher.” The sudden flurry of pronouncements, despite
‘STARWARS’: The weapons would make South Korea the first country to deploy and operate laser weapons, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said South Korea is to deploy laser weapons to shoot down North Korean drones this year, becoming the world’s first country to deploy and operate such weapons in the military, the country’s arms procurement agency said yesterday. South Korea has called its laser program the “StarWars project.” The drone-zapping laser weapons that the South Korean military has developed with Hanwha Aerospace are effective and cheap, with each shot costing 2,000 won (US$1.45), and also quiet and “invisible,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement. “Our country is becoming the first country in the world to deploy and operate laser weapons, and
US ELECTIONS: US President Joe Biden mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskiy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at a NATO summit on Thursday US President Joe Biden vowed he would remain in this year presidential race, but two critical mistakes in the span of two hours deepened concerns about his mental acuity that threaten his campaign. Biden, 81, saw the culmination of this week’s NATO summit as a chance to reassure allies who for two weeks had fretted about his abilities following his first debate performance against former US president Donald Trump. Over a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and a nearly hour-long news conference, he spoke confidently on a range of complex issues from the tax code and trade policy to