Residents of a locked-down Chinese city have raised an outcry about food and medicine shortages, spurring a rare public debate about the country’s strict epidemic controls. Citizens in Tonghua, near China’s border with North Korea in northeastern Jilin province, complained on blogging platform Weibo that a sudden lockdown has left some trapped in their apartments without supplies for more than a week.
“We Tonghua people weren’t knocked down by the virus . . . but by hunger and basic illnesses,” wrote one blogger. “Is there any way of buying insulin? There’s a diabetic in the household who hasn’t had medicine for 10 days, what happens if someone dies?” asked another. China has had a relatively low incidence of Covid-19 but local governments have periodically implemented strict lockdowns to control small and recurrent outbreaks.
While citizens have broadly accepted the government’s efforts round of compulsory Covid-19 RNA testing. The city is the site of one of China’s biggest outbreaks, with 202 confirmed cases as of Tuesday. Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province bordering Beijing, has the country’s biggest outbreak with 746 confirmed cases.
Kelly Liu, a 35-year-old Tonghua resident, told the Financial Times that she and her parents had been living off pickles and peanuts for the past three days. “This is the first time I’ve experienced what it feels like to go so hungry,” Ms Liu said. On Monday, she received her first