China’s lockdown of the northwestern city of Xi’an, home to 13 million people, appears to have turned the corner on a difficult Covid surge—and the Western media are outraged. A couple of weeks ago, one or more passengers on a flight from Pakistan were found on arrival to have the Delta variant and were quarantined in a nearby hotel. However, the employees at the facility failed to carry out the strict procedures, and the infection spread to Xi’an. The last two weeks, Xi’an has been the scene of China’s fourth major battle against COVID-19, and it has not been easy.
Over three weeks, there has been a total of 2,000 cases and 0 deaths. Two weeks ago, on December 23, a strict lockdown was implemented. On January 1, their 7-day average of new cases peaked at 181, before falling back the next four days to 107. On Thursday, the one-day total was 69—and, more importantly, there were no new cases outside of the previously- identified problem areas under special control. There is also a centralized quarantine operation for a) those at high risk; b) those who were in close contact with an infected person; and c) those who are ‘ineligible’ to quarantine at home. That has involved 42,000 people.
Western media has ignored all the above, and has expressed outrage over social media reports that residents haven’t had enough food delivered. Then, on Wednesday, an 8-month-pregnant woman with abdominal pains appeared at the Gaoxin Hospital, only to be made to wait outside the entrance, sitting on a stool, as she had not brought her vaccination record. Within two hours she bled and miscarried. The government has criticized the hospital for its mistake, fired the heads of the outpatient and medical departments, and suspended the hospital’s General Manager, Fan Yuhui. The woman is in recovery, and the head of the city’s Health Department, Liu Shunzhi, bowed and publicly apologized to her, saying that the apology was for “providing poor access to medical treatment and inadequate service for those with special requirements.”
After months of being castigated for doing too much, with their “Zero Covid” policy, to save lives, China is now attacked for not doing enough to save one.
