A girl in China is denied any medical help despite a serious illness. The incident in an isolation center in Ruzhou is extremely inconvenient for President Xi Jinping. Reports of the youths’ deaths have since been deleted from the Chinese internet.
Angry reactions to reports on the Internet about the death of a young person in a quarantine facility have brought China’s censorship into action: almost all traces of the alleged incident have been deleted from the Chinese Internet and the associated hashtags have been blocked in the short message service Weibo.
In the past few days, the Chinese online networks had reported the death of a 14-year-old in a quarantine center in the city of Ruzhou after she was initially denied any medical help despite a serious illness. Videos showed a girl apparently suffering from seizures in a bunk bed while others in the room called for help.
“Initially the little one was fine,” explained a woman who has been identified as the girl’s aunt in another video. But then the 14-year-old got a high fever in quarantine, “and now she’s dead”. The local health authorities did not respond to calls, even though the child was in mortal danger. The AFP news agency could not verify the videos. Requests to the responsible authorities in the city for a statement initially went unanswered.
The reports prompted renewed angry reactions to Beijing’s no-compromise zero-Covid policy. Again and again, cities with a population of over a million are placed under curfews lasting weeks due to individual corona outbreaks, and people are often sent to quarantine centers against their will. In the meantime, not only those affected but also the Chinese economy are increasingly suffering from the strategy.
The incident is inconvenient for the ruling Communist Party, which is currently at its week-long party convention, at which President Xi Jinping is hoping to secure a third term in office. State propaganda and the security apparatus are on high alert.