Normally, the Guanhuali apartment complex near the foot of one of Beijing’s tallest skyscrapers would be buzzing with afternoon activity, but these days only men in white suits are watching over its empty courtyards like a prison.
Guards are located at the bottom of each staircase, while a second line observes a complex perimeter that is fortified in places with a makeshift blue fence.
Surveillance cameras are already closely monitoring the fence, but a security guard in charge of the five-meter section said it was still needed in case residents tried to escape. “The cameras can’t block them,” he said.
This is a scene increasingly common in the Chinese capital as authorities use harsh isolation tactics to try to eliminate the Covid-19 epidemic and prevent a nationwide blockade of the kind that paralyzes the Shanghai Financial Center for more. of six weeks.
Guanhuali was closed on May 5 after only two cases of coronavirus were found among thousands of residents of its 37 low-rise buildings. But Beijing officials believe the resulting difficulties are a necessary side effect of President Xi Jinping’s policy of zero Covid.
For weeks, Beijing hovered on the brink of a complete blockade of a home where no one left, while officials imposed a steady stream of restrictions on daily life. Online images and stories of hunger and despair in Shanghai frightened the 21 million inhabitants of the capital. Thursday’s rumors of a possible blockade sent thousands back to stores in a wave of panic buying.
Guanghuali Apartment Complex is located at the foot of one of the tallest skyscrapers in Beijing
Office buildings, restaurants and malls have been emptied, and hundreds of coronavirus testing tents have sprung up outside. Every day, long queues of masked Pekingese waiting for throat swabs curl around street corners. By Monday, all residents of Chaoyang’s largest neighborhood, which has a population of 3.5 million, had passed 17 rounds of mandatory tests for Covid-19 on April 25.
Beijing is well aware that employees in smaller cities in China have taken even tougher action in far fewer cases than the dozens reported in the capital each day. Japan’s Nomura Investment Bank said the number of Chinese living under some form of blockade had fallen, but 290 million people in 41 cities were still under restrictions as of May 10.
The Omicron explosion is an unprecedented test of Xi’s strategy with zero Covid. But despite the huge economic downturns, statements by the Chinese Communist Party make it clear that even discussing dropping out of politics is politically dangerous.
For those in Beijing who are not under quarantine, the “health code” program in the WeChat messaging app has become a staple for everyday life. To enter grocery stores or parks that remain open, they must scan QR codes and wait for the program to approve them with a sound and an automatic voice that says “skip.”
The program stores test results for Covid-19 and tracks location data, which causes some residents to turn off their phones while driving. Just crossing a high-risk area on the street can cause the program to display a pop-up message warning that the user’s health condition “cannot be confirmed.”
Some of the local neighborhood communities that control coronavirus require residents who receive such a message to be quarantined for three days, while others tell them to take another test for Covid-19.
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In the northwestern part of the city, tens of thousands of students at elite universities are locked in their campuses. Authorities at Tsinghua University have erected fences to separate students from professors, and some canteen staff have been asked to sleep on dining room floors.
For Shi Wei, an administrator at a multinational company, the problems began when a colleague who had dared to go to the floor of his office to eat was later positive.
A local branch of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that Shi was “close contact in time and space” – although she had not seen her colleague – and told her to prepare for official quarantine.
There was no quarantine room available in her neighborhood, so officers installed a sensor on her front door to make sure she was isolated at home.
Hours later, the CDC branch revoked the quarantine order. But Shea’s freedom was short-lived. By Thursday afternoon, she had been reclassified again, this time as a “high-risk person” requiring 10 days of home quarantine.
“It was so confusing and chaotic and different places have different rules,” she said.
Beijing’s methods seem to keep Omicron under control. On Monday, the city reported only 39 new cases, 34 of which involved people already in isolation.
After the Guanghuali complex was locked, on May 7, two additional cases were found among residents locked in their apartments. “They came to take about a dozen people,” said a 26-year-old security guard who recently left the army and now sits at the bottom of the stairs or helps carry food and packages to residents.
As the number of people in isolation increases, so does the demand for security. Until recently, a security guard in Guanhuali worked as a chef in a restaurant. Another was a young student who wanted to make money while his vocational school closed. They receive 300 yuan ($ 44) a day for their 12-hour shifts and sleep in tents stretched out on asphalt.
“Almost everyone will do it, they just have to be able to endure some suffering,” said Li Fei, a tenant who sent dozens of security guards to quarantine sites around Beijing for the city government. “There are a lot of unemployed people right now,” Lee said. “If they tell us they need 100 people, we can find them in a few hours.
Arjun Neil Alim contributed to a report from Beijing
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