Children as young as seven were held for hours in a Beijing school before being sent to centralised quarantine for two weeks after a staff member tested positive for Covid-19.
The incident, which drew alarm from parents and observers, came amid a rush of extreme measures imposed on the city over about 40 cases of the Delta variant, part of a national outbreak affecting at least 16 of China’s 31 provinces. Tighter curbs are expected after the National Health Commission reported a near three-month high on Tuesday, with 93 new local symptomatic cases, up from 54 a day earlier.
The Huajiadi Experimental primary school in Chaoyang district was quickly sealed off on Monday afternoon after it emerged a teacher had been diagnosed with coronavirus, local media reported.
Parents were called to the school but spent hours gathered outside the gate waiting for information on their children caught inside by the lockdown. According to reports, school authorities said the children were all being tested and some would have to remain there overnight.
Footage posted on Weibo purports to show children lining up in front of healthworkers wearing PPE, at an oval in the dark.
Shortly before midnight, the school’s principal emerged and told parents to go home and pack clothes for their children and to bring them the following morning. They were told at least some children would be sent to centralised quarantine facilities for 14 days, and one parent could accompany them.
“Parents are really anxious,” said one person online. “It is most frightening when the virus is spreading in densely populated places such as schools, hospitals, military, and prisons. I hope that the children will be safe.”
Authorities also closed 16 other schools in Chaoyang because staff members went to a vaccination site for booster shots at the same time as the teacher who later tested positive.
The school closures are among a host of recent measures adding to frustrations among residents. Half of Beijing airport’s scheduled flights have been cancelled and authorities have urged people not to leave the city, or to delay returning if they are away. Elsewhere, cities have been put into lockdown or subjected to mass testing. Shanghai Disneyland was closed for two days and all guests inside tested before they were let out on Sunday. Authorities have also urged people to stockpile necessities.
One Beijing resident described on social media being told to go into quarantine after spending a few minutes in a hotel lobby where a positive case had been identified that day.
“I was first asked to get tested, then told I should stay home until the results are out, then told I had to go into centralised quarantine for 14 days, at which I was horrified and said so,” the resident described on Twitter. “The guy from the [district government] took pity, and he managed to convince the CDC [Centre for Disease Control] that I could home quarantine.”
“I’ve never personally known this many people get quarantined since I came back to Beijing last year. They’re really going into overdrive this time.”
It followed other reports of people who had been stranded outside the city by glitches with China’s health apps, which designate statuses based on infections, vaccinations and travel history to control movement.
On Tuesday, the Beijing city government apologised to people affected by the errors, local media reported.
While there remains broad support for China’s attempts to keepthe rate of infections lower than other countries, there is growing frustration with the government’s persistence in eliminating every outbreak as the rest of the world is beginning to open up.
“What is the point of endless pursuit of the zero-Covid strategy? The vaccine has also been given to 80%. Is there no confidence in domestic vaccines? We should make the coronavirus part of life.”
