As most Americans tune out COVID-19 hype, the regime that unleashed coronavirus on the world 27 months ago is desperately trying to control another wave.
The Chinese Communist Party began sending tens of thousands of military and health care workers into Shanghai this week to implement COVID-19 tests for all 26 million residents. The country’s largest city — a business and financial hub — initially began its lockdown in the east, then extended it across the entire city. The haphazard decision to resume lockdown is now indefinite and has sparked confusion and anger.
In enforcing this strict stance, Beijing’s planners are separating small children who test positive from their parents. Elsewhere, people are starving as lockdowns cause food shortages. Some even have chosen suicide.
Since January, the less virulent omicron variant has been passing through China; this caused the largest surge of COVID-19 infections — 25,000 per day in a nation of 1.4 billion, though the regime lies every day — since the Wuhan outbreak of early 2020.
The Chinese government has ordered more than two-thirds of the provinces to initiate lockdowns — deemed “rigid, violent and inhumane” — disrupting tens of millions of lives.
The growing discontent and lack of freedom is evident:
As seen on Weibo: Shanghai residents go to their balconies to sing & protest lack of supplies. A drone appears: “Please comply w covid restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing.” https://t.co/0ZTc8fznaV pic.twitter.com/pAnEGOlBIh
— Alice Su (@aliceysu) April 6, 2022
Those with life-threatening diseases or need for vital medical treatments are confined to overcrowded tenements and reportedly denied access to medical care.
China’s zero-COVID policy requires instant quarantines, so whenever a case is found, the building where the person lives is shut down and anyone in the vicinity is isolated. Others are sent hundreds of miles away to quarantine camps.
And there are political and economic ramifications, including a potential global recession.
“When police drag someone in front of a crowd and beat them for violating pandemic prevention rules, it looks like a military operation. This could be a hurdle for Xi,” a Taiwanese national told Alpha News. “He needs to prove his policies will achieve some sort of victory over the pandemic. Any deviation could cause skepticism as Xi pursues his third term in October. The zero tolerance policy, in my view, is unsustainable.”
The country the world honored with the recent Winter Olympics, despite modern-day concentration camps, claims nearly 90% of its population is fully vaccinated but it also has ineffective coronavirus vaccines.
The sad situation is instructive on the failures of Beijing’s authoritarian central government, which has no exit strategy and won’t deviate from their policies, as the surge nears the capital city.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
