ZERO COVID policy ignites new protests in China

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#China, November 16, 2022 – Civil unrest is increasing in China as residents protest the stringent ZERO COVID lockdowns implemented by the government.  Protests are unusual for the authoritarian nation, where several of the major news outlets are owned by the state and censorship is often employed  but residents in Guangzhou, the latest lockdown site and a major manufacturing hub, flooded the streets on Monday in a protest that quickly turned aggressive.

Videos of the events show residents tearing down barriers  in one instance while workers in full body personal protective gear look on and in another instance residents overturn a police car. Videos also emerged of the state response showing rows and rows of enforcement officers in stark white personal protective suits and black riot gear march toward protest areas.

China’s ZERO COVID approach is much stricter than most other countries with lockdowns for entire cities and mandatory quarantines for infected and suspected cases in large quarantine sites for even a few cases. Major cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou have not been spared both experiencing significant lockdowns that contributed to instability in the supply chain globally.

Guangzhou went under lockdown last week after several thousand cases popped up in residential areas across the city. Shanghai was confined for over two months in early 2022.

China has managed to keep its death rate very low compared to smaller countries like the United States and the United Kingdom and even some countries in the Caribbean which have much more liberal approaches and many more fatalities. But the strict approach leaves no leeway, stories of pets being killed because their owners have contracted Covid-19; residents running out of food because delivery companies are overwhelmed; one eye doctor having to perform his duties through a chain link fence and dozens dying in a tragic accident as they were transported to a quarantine facility in the dead of night have all caught global attention.

Whether the government will bow under the social and economic pressure to ease the lockdowns is yet to be seen.