Covid-19 in China: opening of a quarantine hospital for pets
A hamster taken in by a citizen after a cluster of Covid-19 was discovered in the store it was purchased from.
AFP - BERTHA WANG
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
With the resurgence of Covid-19 in China, what to do with cats and dogs when their owners are sent to a collective isolation center?
The city of Shenzhen in the south-east of the country has just announced the opening of a first quarantine hospital for pets.
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With our correspondent in Beijing
,
Stéphane Lagarde
The announcement of the end of the work of this isolation center for dogs and cats has more than 150 million views on social networks.
A flurry of comments, newspaper columns: “
pets are not playthings that can be got rid of, but life partners
,” says
the Beijing News
.
The death of a Corji
The opening of the 8,500m2 space in Guangming district comes after
a Corji suddenly disappeared on
Wednesday.
The little dog tried to chase the van that was taking its positive-tested owners to quarantine in Shanghai.
The hairball was beaten to death by a health brigade officer in a full protective suit.
The images made the rounds of the networks, reviving criticism against the collateral damage of the “zero covid” strategy.
This is not the first time that a domestic animal has been killed in China by the health brigades.
In September 2021, three cats were euthanized in the northeast of the country, "
in accordance with the law
" and while their mistress had been placed in solitary confinement, according to
the
Global Times
.
The “
zero covid madness
”
A month later, the owner of a poodle, also quarantined after being infected, watched horrified as her poodle was stabbed to death via
surveillance cameras in her home
.
These cases have hit the headlines.
The death of Corji was the last straw that caused the anger of the confined to overflow.
The Omicron rebound deprives entire megalopolises of freedom, including pets.
Some Internet users take things with humor, showing
photos of XXL litter boxes
in apartments or walks with dogs and cats on the roofs of residences.
Others are more critical and wonder how far the “
zero covid madness
” will go ?
The Omicron rebound
The authorities monitor social networks like soy milk on the fire and are forced to react.
Is this also a sign of an evolution in relation to the fear of the virus?
Lu Hongzhou, an expert quoted by
the People's Daily
, recently recalled that, until now, no contaminated animal had transferred the viral pneumonia to a human.
On its Weibo account,
the official
China News
website claims that this decision reflects “
the restraint of the authorities
”.
Shenzhen which, according to the state media, would have managed the Omicron rebound better than Shanghai, therefore marks a new point vis-à-vis public opinion by taking this initiative, however limited.
The Jiankou Community
Animal Quarantine Center in Guangming County
can accommodate up to 300 residents.
According to official figures, 220,000 dogs were registered in Shenzhen in 2021.
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