Report
Covid-19 in China: life turned upside down for residents of big cities
Audio 01:53
A confined neighborhood in Shanghai, April 14, 2022. REUTERS - ALY SONG
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Contrary to many countries opting to coexist with the virus and lifting restrictions, China continues to follow a zero Covid-19 policy while the number of cases remains the highest for the country since the first phase of the pandemic. epidemic, beginning of 2020. With drastic border screening, removals “via” a mobile phone are being made for those who have not been able to return to China since the start of the pandemic.
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With our correspondent in Beijing
,
Stéphane Lagarde
In China, you sometimes have to go around a concrete bridge to avoid a residential area classified as a Covid-19 risk which could turn your health pass orange.
More than two years after the start of the pandemic, there are still
confined residences
in Beijing and delayed moves with apartments where almost nothing has changed since the sudden departure of tenants in 2020.
With suspended visas, a lack of planes and drastic quarantines on arrival, some families have been unable to return to China since the start of the pandemic, even for holidays.
This is the case of Virginie, who is a mother: “
It was really becoming too expensive to keep the apartment in Beijing
.
We waited a lot, we thought that on the one hand we would be able to return there and on the other hand that we could sublet it, but with the zero covid policy which does not seem to change at all at the governmental level, it is not possible.
»
Avoid triggering the alert on your health pass
Mr. Liu, a neighbor who came to help, would like to retrieve aspirins and other painkillers from the medicine box, which, again, triggers the alert on your health pass when you go to buy them at the pharmacy in Beijing.
Unfortunately, the boxes are outdated, as are the decorations on the front door of the apartment.
"
These are the drawings of the year of the rat,
" explains Mr. Liu, tapping on the cardboard
.
It was the year the Covid-19 started.
They thought it would pass.
But now you can count: the rat, the buffalo and this year the tiger, it's already been three springs!
»
Mr. Liu curses the "
bingdu
" as the Chinese say, the virus that kept him away from his friends.
Ex-VTC driver, he lost his job because of the pandemic and the restrictions that go with it.
Remote moves, emotionally difficult
In the apartment, on the floor below, we hope that the floods of last summer did not do too much damage.
We are looking for diplomas, photos to put aside.
The price of containers for Europe remains unaffordable, while waiting for better days the boxes of the Virginia family will therefore be sent to the suburbs of Beijing.
But screen moves aren't easy.
“
You have to do this with a phone.
It's difficult virtually, but also emotionally, because it represents 20 years of life.
You have to decide everything like that through the screens
, ”explains Virginie.
For now, the authorities have not given a timetable for the reopening of China.
Only information, air traffic should return to normal next year.
And the city of
Shanghai
, totally confined since the beginning of the month, announced on Wednesday a slight relaxation of restrictions, which penalize supplies and weigh heavily on China's economy despite the 18,000 positive cases reported.
►
To listen: China: the economy challenged by the “zero Covid” strategy
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China
Coronavirus
Confinement