Twelve new deaths from coronavirus in Shanghai, whose neighbors protest on networks

The authorities of the eastern city of Shanghai today announced 12 new deaths from COVID-19 this Friday, the day in which the inhabitants of the city protested massively on social networks for the management of the omicron outbreak that already leaves 48 dead.

The number of new infections in the city experienced a rebound this Friday after growing 32.6% compared to Thursday to 23,370, including symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

Likewise, the number of deaths on Friday grew from the 11 registered the day before to 12, all of them unvaccinated, with previous health problems and with an average age of 88 years, according to official data.

“VOICES OF APRIL”

As of Friday afternoon, videos related to the problems and disturbances recorded during the Shanghai confinement began to flood the “wall” of the social network and messaging application Wechat, the most important in the country.

In particular, a video titled “April Voices” became one of the most popular.

The video, in black and white, shows images of the confined city taken from a drone while, in the background, statements from local authorities and testimonies from its inhabitants can be heard.

The piece begins with the voices of various local officials who denied in late March the possibility of a large-scale confinement, in part due to the important role that the city plays in the Chinese economy.

After that, there are fragments of conversations and testimonies of city residents detailing problems in medical care, in the supply of food to confined neighborhoods and in the conditions of the isolation centers, where all patients are sent. positive, with few exceptions.

COVERING CENSORSHIP

As the video began to fill the walls of Wechat users, the application began to delete them: the posts were still visible, but when trying to play the film, error messages such as “This content cannot currently be played” appeared.

Numerous users re-uploaded the video, in some cases rotated 180º in the hope of circumventing the identification of the content.

The censorship spread to other platforms such as the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, which is blocked in the country, Weibo, where the search for “April Voices” does not return any results and the hashtag #AprilVoices shows the following message: “In accordance with the laws and regulations, this topic is not shown”.

About censorship, Hu Xijin, a famous polemicist and former editor of the Global Times newspaper, spoke on Weibo: “Shanghai’s lockdown has been going on for a long time and its inhabitants have complaints that they need to convey through some means. The fact that Internet administrators delete content does not mean that local governments do not take opinions seriously. In fact, expressing opinions on Chinese networks is more effective than complaining in Western countries.”

STRONGER RESTRICTIONS

The authorities of the city, of 25 million inhabitants and which has been partially or totally confined since the end of March, still do not have a reopening date.

This Friday, a tightening of prevention measures was announced: the movements of health workers and delivery men between some urbanizations will be limited to minimize infections between different communities, disinfection work will be intensified and the placement of sensors and alarms on the doors of those infected who exceptionally receive permission to isolate themselves in their homes.

Likewise, massive PCR tests will increase, one of the pillars of the Chinese anti-pandemic strategy together with the closure of borders, the limitation of movements and the isolation of all those infected, in certain urbanizations.

Chinese Vice Prime Minister Sun Chunlan, sent by the central government to Shanghai, this week asked local authorities “not to rest” until they trace, isolate and treat all those infected in the city and urged them to soon reach the goal of “zero covid in society”, which refers to the absence of new positive cases outside of quarantine centers, hospitals and neighborhoods classified as “high risk”.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Shanghai has registered a total of 42,379 symptomatic cases of covid-19 and 55 deaths.

Source: Elcomercio

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