When she tested positive while working on the cleaning crew at a quarantine center in Shanghai, the woman, who only gives her surname, thought it would just be a bad time to have.

Four months later, she is fighting to be able to work again.

"People are afraid of catching the virus from our contact, so they avoid us," she sighs.

Difficult to hide the truth during a job interview: "Recruiters check the history of Covid tests dating back several months during an interview".

Like her, other former patients suffer from this discrimination when they are fully recovered, worry defenders of labor rights, stressing that the first victims are migrants from the countryside and young people.

China is the last major economy on the planet to pursue a strict zero Covid policy, with regular large-scale testing and lockdowns of neighborhoods or even entire cities.

Those who test positive and their contacts are systematically sent to quarantine centres.

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Enough to fuel paranoia: some former Covid patients – but also their families, neighbors and friends – are stricken with a stigma, says Jin Dongyan, professor at the school of biomedical sciences at the University of Hong Kong.

Even front-line caregivers are viewed with suspicion.

“Ignorance makes some fear that people who have been infected are more likely to be re-infected, but in reality it is the opposite,” he says.

"Like a Virus"

Ms. Zuo has embarked on a legal battle against her employer, who refuses to pay her salary since she fell ill and to return her job.

Contacted by AFP, the latter declined to comment.

He Yuxiu experienced the same mishap: this social media influencer, who speaks under a pseudonym, was in Ukraine when the war broke out.

She returned to China where she started working as a Russian teacher in Hebei province (north).

When the school learned she had Covid in Ukraine, she was expelled.

"I never thought I would lose my first job because of this," she said in a video posted on Weibo, China's Twitter.

But "why should we be treated like a virus, when precisely we have defeated it?".

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Elsewhere in the country, other cases of discrimination have been reported: last month, job advertisements from factories in Shanghai clearly specified that anyone who had already had Covid would not be recruited.

Also in Shanghai, the story of a young woman who lived for several weeks in the toilets of Hongqiao station went viral: recently recovered from Covid, she could no longer find a job or return to live in her village.

In Foshan (south), a theater had to apologize after the scandal caused by a poster prohibiting entry to those who one day caught the virus.

"Little Sheep"

In July, Chinese authorities issued a circular banning discrimination against recovered Covid patients, with Prime Minister Li Keqiang calling for tough penalties for violations.

But in Shanghai, even after the city's announcement of strict anti-discrimination rules, factories have not changed their practices, denounces Wang Tao, an agent who connects factories with migrant workers from the countryside.

“Some give different excuses (for not hiring) when they lack workers, but everyone who gets rejected has been positive in the past.”

AFP contacted eight companies cited by state media for their discriminatory practices - including iPhone maker Foxconn.

None wished to speak.

"It's very hard for workers to protect their rights because ... it's hard to prove that (employers) violate labor law," said Aidan Chau, a researcher at the rights group China Labor Bulletin. .

"It's important for unions to step up. But many small and medium-sized businesses don't have one."

Those who test positive are nicknamed "little sheep" on Chinese social networks, because in Mandarin, the words "positive" and "sheep" are pronounced the same.

Ms. Zuo would just like to turn the page: "It's really complicated for recovered patients to return to a normal life. Wherever we go, our infection history will follow us like a dark cloud".

© 2022 AFP