by Guido Santevecchi
In Beijing, 47 cases have worried the authorities. Cages have been set up in Shanghai, which has been under lockdown for weeks, to stop people leaving the country
The grim situation says the Beijing Health Commission. 47 cases of Covid-19 that emerged on Friday were enough to worry authorities and people in the Chinese capital, who fear it will end in the same siege Shanghai has been wielding for four weeks. At the moment, the epicenter of the outbreak in Beijing is the Chaoyang district, which is home to offices, embassies and luxury shopping malls that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors a day (hence, although most cases have been detected in Chaoyang, the positives are more likely to be from other districts would come).
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Authorities say the infections have been circulating for at least a week. Cai Qi, the powerful party secretary in the capital, said preventive measures couldn’t wait even a day. Since the crisis began in 2020, Xi Jinping had proclaimed that Beijing must be defended at all costs (a matter of international standing and the internal credibility of the communist general secretary, who has often alerted the masses to the chaos and lockdowns in US capitals Of the West). The health-fighting strategy is the usual one: Chaoyang’s 3.5 million residents have been prescribed three tampons in six days to enter the office or leave the house. Test tents were set up in the streets in front of the skyscrapers and people were lined up neatly. It seems inevitable that with the carpet testing, more cases will emerge and the circle of aggressive tracking of contacts and movements of the infected will be triggered, leading to the expansion of measures.
After Sunday’s zero-tolerance campaign announcement, Chaoyang’s supermarkets were overflowing with people stocking up on groceries: the shelves were empty within hours. The shopping frenzy in Beijing was inspired by images that have poured in over the past four weeks from Shanghai, where authorities are failing to provide regular supplies to millions of locked-down families. There was massive tension and protests on social networks, which even censorship could not completely hide. Beijing has the health machine’s experience with last February’s Winter Olympics on its side: about 60,000 athletes and logistics staff were stuck in a bubble for a month, exposed to tampons every day and immediately isolated if positive. . Now, the same Olympic model could zone Beijing into closed-circle zones to avoid the spread of Covid-19 and stem the wave fueled by Omicron.
In Shanghai, the lockdown imposed on March 28 for the areas where more cases were reported entered an even stricter phase: the dabai were ordered to apply the ying geli. Daba means Great White (or Biancone) and is the nickname for health workers and vigilantes in airtight suits handling the on-site emergency. “Ying geli” can be translated as increased isolation. The result is that, since the weekend, the Bianconi have started to mount two-meter-high metal nets in front of the entrances of the buildings in some areas of the megalopolis, to deter residents who try to go to the courtyard or the street. In working-class neighborhoods, the Dabai have hung white emergency overalls that look like scarecrows in front of houses as a sign of quarantine. The number of infections among Shanghai’s 26 million residents since March 1 is now approaching the 500,000 mark. As of April 17, authorities had reported no deaths. Now the death toll has reached 138.
April 25, 2022 (Change April 25, 2022 | 10:44)
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