China’s main financial hub, Shanghai, has reported more Covid-19-related deaths in the past 24 hours as residents express their anger over a severe lockdown and strict online censorship.
The total lockdown of the city of Shanghai began in early April, although many people were confined to their homes for much longer, and stress began to take its toll on residents.
The city, which is battling China’s biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, recorded 12 new Covid-19 deaths on Friday, up from 11 the day before.
Patients who died had an average age of 88 years, the Shanghai government said. All had underlying health conditions and none had been vaccinated.
On social media, netizens battled censors overnight to share a six-minute video titled “The Voice of April,” a montage of voices recorded throughout the Shanghai outbreak.
Panoramic over the silent skyscrapers of Shanghai, the video consists of residents complaining about the lack of food and medicine, as well as the heavy-handed tactics of the city authorities.
All direct references to the video were removed from the social network Weibo on Saturday morning, although some comments criticizing the censorship survived.
“All I can say is that if you don’t want to hear just a small amount of real voices, then it’s really useless,” said one.
Many were reminded of the anger that erupted on social media two years ago after the Covid-19 death of Li Wenliang, a doctor reprimanded by police for sharing “false” information about a new infectious disease similar to SARS in Wuhan in late 2019.
“Dr. Li, after two years nothing has changed,” said another Weibo user. “We still can’t open our mouths, we still can’t speak.”
“Grind your teeth”
Despite anger and frustration among residents of Shanghai’s isolated residential complexes, local officials say there will be no relaxation until new cases outside the quarantine areas are eliminated.
“The more critical the period becomes, the more we need to grit our teeth and focus our strength,” Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng told the Shanghai government’s official WeChat channel on Friday.
The number of cases outside the quarantine areas was 218 on Friday, down from 250 the day before.
There were 20,634 new asymptomatic local infections in the city, recovering from 15,698 on Thursday. Total new symptomatic cases reached 2,736, up from 1,931 on April 21, official data showed.
“One strategy that needs immediate implementation is to increase booster rates for the elderly and other vulnerable groups and see if mRNA vaccines can be used,” said Jaya Dantas, a public health expert at the Curtin School of Population. Health in Australia, which is monitoring the Shanghai outbreak.
China has yet to introduce its own mRNA vaccines and has chosen not to import those developed abroad.
In a study published by China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, medical experts in the northeastern city of Jilin, the site of another recent outbreak, said China’s vaccines have been effective until now, although new emerging variants of Covid-19 remain unpredictable.
They said “the data are strong enough to indicate the public importance of the full and booster vaccination strategy, particularly for the elderly population.”
Liang Wannian, head of a Covid-19 expert advisory body at the National Health Commission, told state television on Friday that China’s current “dynamic” Covid Zero policies have given the country “time to prepare”, allowing to strengthen vaccination levels. .
Tang Jiafu, a city official, acknowledged on Saturday that the disruptions were putting Shanghai’s environmental health under pressure, with less than half of its sanitation workers currently active affecting garbage collection fees.
Even after shutting down for more than 30 days, some compounds are still reporting new cases, casting doubt on the effectiveness of China’s approach.
“This is a significant amount of time and it has impacts on mental health: people are exhausted and frustrated,” Dantas said.
Source: CNN Brasil
