- The man, under police investigation, tested positive after leaving home to go to an area considered at risk.
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| A woman wearing PPE walks in front of the Hongqiao railway station amid the COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai, China, on May 29, 2022. / EFE |
A man in his 40s is under police investigation after failing to comply with the mandatory quarantine due to covid and causing some 5,000 of his neighbors to be forced to isolate themselves in their homes in Beijing (China) as a measure to contain the coronavirus.
As reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, the man skipped his mandatory isolation at a time when the authorities of both the capital and Shanghai were beginning to relax restrictions after almost three months of a strict 'covid zero' policy...
A few days before the end of the mandatory quarantine imposed by the Government to stop the spread of the contagious omicron variant, this man (whose identity is not revealed) left his house to go to a commercial area classified as risky on May 23. Days later, this man and his wife tested positive for coronavirus.
In response, the authorities ordered the 258 people who live in the same building to isolate themselves in a center designated by the Government to carry out quarantines and more than 5,000 residents of their residential area to remain in their homes.
These events have caused outrage on social networks, where comments of frustration have been read among users: "What is this man doing? Does he not want to end the epidemic in Beijing? Does he have to go out and harm people when Is the situation almost stable?" one person wondered.
"The community and the patient each share 50% of the responsibility, as the community did not install a magnetic alarm on the door...and there was a management responsibility that the community should assume," commented another.
Gradual return to normal
The so-called 'covid-zero' policy of the Xi Jinping government has been heavily criticized for its negative impact on the economy, but the leader defends the scientific evidence and the effectiveness of these massive closures. The Government had already announced that on June 1 a phase of a gradual return to normality prior to the regrowth would begin, which should have concluded before the end of the month.
In recent days, many areas that had been confined for months have begun to fully or partially regain their freedom, although the vast majority of businesses were still closed.
The Chinese National Health Commission reported this Monday the detection of 34 new positives for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, 20 of them due to local contagion, one of the lowest figures recorded since the last outbreaks began almost three months ago. The provinces where new infections were recorded were Beijing (8), Shanghai (east, 6), and Tianjin (north, 6).
China is going through a wave of outbreaks attributed to the omicron variant that has caused record numbers of infections not seen since the start of the pandemic in the first half of 2020.