AP and Europe Press
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, November 9, 2022, p. 18
Beijing. Seven people have been detained in northeastern China after clashes between residents and authorities enforcing COVID-19 quarantines, police in the Guangzhou region said yesterday.
The violence came as China reported 2,230 cases in Guangzhou, an industrial and technological hub, on Tuesday.
Although the numbers are still relatively low, China has maintained its strict protocol zero covid
which includes quarantines, confinements and almost daily mandatory virus detection tests.
In Linyi, Shandong, a police report indicated that public security would crack down on those who illegally violated the rights of personal protection of citizens
.
The anti-pandemic measures have caused rejection throughout the country, constituting an unusual challenge to the authority of the Communist Party. It was not immediately clear who was arrested after the clashes. News of the arrests appeared on social media Tuesday morning, but the country’s censors removed it before noon.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made the zero covid
the hallmark of his government, which gained momentum last month after he was granted a third five-year term and elevated his loyalists to positions of power.
Although the rest of the world has returned to normal, China has taken only minor steps and its borders remain mostly closed, as officials face heightened pressure to enforce restrictions.
In Canton, in the south of the country, the authorities launched a massive SARS-CoV-2 testing campaign in nine districts due to the increase in infections, after touching 2,400 positives in one day.
Canton confirmed 2,377 positives in the last 24 hours, mostly asymptomatic, thus chaining for the third consecutive day numbers of infections of over a thousand in the midst of a new outbreak registered a little over two weeks ago. Among the districts where the detection is Haizhu, the epicenter of this new outbreak – with more than 90 percent of infections – which will be confined until the weekend. The global balance of the pandemic is 6 million 602 thousand 626 deaths and 633 million 290 thousand 543 infections, according to Johns Hopkins University.
