Covid-19 The consequences of the Covid outbreaks in China: the thousand officials purged in the great blacklist of the pandemic
Coronavirus Hong Kong funeral homes, overtaken by Covid: "I have never seen so many bodies stacked together"
"It's too cruel."
It was the scream from the window of the man who recorded on Wednesday how
a
Shanghai official
dressed in the PPE suit beat a dog to death in the street
.
The video quickly spread through Chinese social networks, which were flooded with criticism of the Chinese authorities.
It was not the first time that Covid-19 prevention workers had killed a pet because its owners had tested positive.
While public anger grew on
, the Chinese brother of
, the authorities of the city of Shenzhen, the technological capital of China, in the south of the country, announced that they were opening the
first quarantine center for pets whose owners have tested positive for Covid
.
It is a complex of 1,500 square meters, located in the Guangming district of the city, ready to accommodate
up to 300 animals that will receive free 24-hour care
.
It is the response of local officials after several complaints from residents who were isolated in quarantine centers during the confinement of this mega-city of 17 million inhabitants on March 17, and who had to leave the animals at home.
In Shenzhen, according to the 2021 record published by the
Beijing News
, there are
220,000 dogs
.
No account of cats or other pets.
In the images that have emerged from the new center, in addition to cats and dogs, there are also
caged ducks and rabbits being fed by workers who do not take off their PPE suit.
The initiative in Shenzhen to open the pet quarantine center has been highly applauded by
Chinese netizens, who are asking authorities in Shanghai
, China's financial capital, which is ending its second week of confinement, to do the same.
The outrage continues after the
Chinese official killed a corgi
while its owners, both positive, had been transferred to a hotel to comply with the quarantine, following the state policy that no infected person can spend isolation at home.
According to local media reports, the couple was debating whether to release the dog on the street in the hope that it would find food there or leave it at home where it could starve if its owners' quarantine went on too long.
They opted for the first option.
That's when the neighbor recorded a pickup truck chasing the corgi and
a worker getting out with a shovel and hitting it three times in the head.
The dog's cries of pain could be heard on the video.
A Shanghai official explained to a Chinese newspaper that they killed the dog because they thought the animal posed a risk of spreading the disease.
"We didn't fully consider the problem, and we told the dog's owner that we will discuss compensation with him later
," he explained.
Last November, there was also much controversy with a similar incident in the province of
Jiangxi
, in southeastern China.
The owner of the house was fulfilling the quarantine in a hotel room.
But a camera that she had installed in her apartment captured the moment when
two sanitation workers entered the house to disinfect it and one of them began beating the dog
with an iron bar to death.
Days later, the authorities ended up apologizing to the owner for the "harmless elimination" of the dog.
They announced that
the bar official had been "punished and demoted"
.
Also in November, a boy from
Hebei
province claimed that
his cats were killed
after he was transferred to quarantine.
Two months earlier, a woman had already denounced on social networks that health workers euthanized her three cats after she tested positive.
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