Beijing — China has suspended or closed more than 1,000 social media accounts criticizing the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak.
The popular Sina Weibo social media platform says it has addressed 12,854 violations, including attacks on experts, academics and medical workers, and temporarily or permanently banned 1,120 accounts. Did.
The ruling Communist Party relied heavily on the medical community to justify stringent lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which were abruptly abandoned last month in a surge in new cases that stretched medical resources to the limit. Connected. The party does not allow direct criticism and imposes severe restrictions on free speech.
Sina Weibo said in a statement on Thursday that the company “will step up investigation and cleanup of all kinds of illegal content and continue to create a harmonious and friendly community environment for the majority of users.” rice field.
Criticism has mostly focused on unrestricted travel restrictions that have forced people to stay home for weeks, sometimes not getting enough food or medical care. The requirement that persons, or persons who may have had contact with such persons, be confined and observed in field hospitals, where overcrowding, poor diet and hygiene are commonly noted, was also diverged. rice field.
The social and economic costs ultimately sparked rare street protests in Beijing and other cities, and may have influenced the party’s decision to quickly ease the toughest measures.
China is currently facing a surge in cases and hospitalizations in major cities as it prepares for further expansion into less developed regions with the start of the Lunar New Year travel rush starting in the next few days. International flights are still down, but officials expect domestic rail and air travel to double around the same time last year, approaching the number of holiday periods in 2019 before the pandemic hit.
The Ministry of Transport on Friday called on travelers to reduce travel and gatherings, especially those involving the elderly, pregnant women, small children and those with underlying medical conditions.
People using public transport are also urged to wear masks and take extra precautions. health and personal hygiene, Vice Minister Xu Chengguang told reporters at a briefing.
Nevertheless, China Plans are underway to end the mandatory quarantine for people arriving from abroad from Sunday.
The city of Beijing will also lift the requirement that students in the city’s schools must test negative for COVID-19 to enter campus when classes resume after the holidays on February 13. . Schools will be allowed to move classes online in the event of a new outbreak, but must return to in-person instruction as soon as possible, the city’s education department said in a statement Friday.
However, the end of mass testing, the lack of basic data such as death tolls, infections, and severe cases, and the potential emergence of new subspecies, have led other countries’ governments to limit travel from China to Virus inspection requirements have been established.
The World Health Organization has also expressed concern about the lack of data from China, but the United States requires travelers from China to have negative test results within 48 hours of departure.
Chinese health authorities publish daily numbers of new infections, severe cases and deaths, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and no COVID-related deaths. is a very narrow definition.
China has said its testing requirements are not based on science and has threatened unspecified countermeasures. Its spokesperson said the situation was under control and rejected accusations of a lack of preparations for reopening.
When variants emerge in outbreaks, they are discovered by viral gene sequencing.
Since the pandemic began, China has shared 4,144 sequences with GISAID. coronavirus data. That’s just 0.04% of the number of reported cases, more than one-hundredth that of the United States and about one-fourth that of neighboring Mongolia.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong also plans to reopen some of its border crossings with mainland China on Sunday, allowing tens of thousands of people to cross each day without being quarantined.
The semi-autonomous southern Chinese city has been hit hard by the virus, with land and sea border crossings with the mainland closed for almost three years. Despite the risks, the reopening is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong’s tourism and retail businesses.
