Beijing: China on Tuesday further strengthened police presence in cities, tightened online censorship and made arrangements to send university students back home as authorities tried to prevent more protests by crowds exasperated by hard Covid-19 curbs
Reports said police were digging up records of individuals who took part in the weekend protests and summoning them to police stations while some people seen at key protest sites in the last 24 hours were asked to show their mobile phones for messages related to the demonstrations.
China’s social media platforms were being gradually scrubbed clean of even indirect references to the protests, which took place in several cities including in Beijing, Shanghai, Urumqi, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Hangzhou.
There was no confirmation about how many people were formally arrested for taking part in the demonstrations.
Triggered partly by a fatal fire in Urumqi, the protests were the biggest show of public defiance against newly reanointed Communist party general secretary for the third time, Xi Jinping and his ‘zero-Covid’ strategy, which have affected the lives of millions, damaged the economy and disrupted critical supply chains across the world.
While there was no word of fresh protests on Tuesday in Beijing, Shanghai or in any other city, residents told the media that police personnel deployed on streets were going through their phones to check for suspicious content, use of virtual private networks (VPN) or the Telegram app, apparently used to coordinate protests at different locations.
In China, using VPNs is illegal and the Telegram app is blocked from being used like Twitter, Facebook and Google. “We are all desperately deleting our chat history,” a protester in Beijing told the Reuters news agency.
Committed to ‘zero-Covid’ policy
Chinese officials, meanwhile, have reiterated – the often repeated – “unswerving commitment” to the ‘zero-Covid’ policy after introducing some easing of the rules. “Covid-19 control measures should be lifted in a timely manner as soon as conditions allow to minimise the inconvenience caused by the restrictions on people’s daily lives,” Mi Feng, NHC spokesperson, said on Tuesday.
The NHC also said it will bolster vaccination among its senior citizens, considered key to easing unpopular “zero-Covid” curbs.
“China will speed up the Covid-19 vaccination rate for people aged over 80 and continue to increase the rate for people aged between 60 and 79,” according to a notice released by the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism on Tuesday.
The national health commission (NHC) said it would target more vaccinations at people older than 80 and reduce the three-month gap between basic vaccination and booster shots for the age group.
“It is also the hope that our elderly friends, especially those over 80, will take the initiative and get vaccinated for their personal health protection,” Xia Gang, an NHC official in charge of immunisation services, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
More than 90% of China’s 1.4 billion people are fully vaccinated but the numbers decline with age. The share of those aged 60 and older who have received two doses was 86.4% by November 11; recipients of a booster jab made up 68.2% of the elderly population.
The Global Times, a state-run tabloid, said several cities were now “optimising” their response “to take more targeted, science-based actions to curb flare-ups”, reflecting advice on Covid-19 responses announced earlier this month by Xi.
“The authorities have stressed that optimising and adjusting the measures does not mean loosening prevention and control, nor it is a lifting of Covid-19 restrictions or “lying flat” in fighting the virus,” the newspaper said.
Decline in cases
Meanwhile, China reported the first decline in daily Covid infections in more than a week, data released by the NHC on Tuesday for Monday showed.
Local infections, majority asymptomatic, totaled 38,421, down from a record high of 40,052 reported on Monday for Sunday.
Local Covid-19 cases also fell in the southern city of Guangzhou and Chongqing in southwest China, two of the hardest-hit cities in the ongoing Omicron-driven outbreak.
Beijing, however, saw infections rise on Monday, compared to a day earlier.
The city reported 957 symptomatic new locally transmitted Covid-19 infections and 3,429 asymptomatic cases for Monday – highest since the pandemic started.
Authorities said 490 cases on Monday were found outside quarantined areas, an indication that the virus was circulating in the city.
