China’s Covid-19 health code system that strictly governs people’s movements crashed in Xi’an this week, worsening conditions in the locked-down city where the country’s worst outbreak since Wuhan has been unfolding. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The crash has complicated efforts to weed out cases through mass testing, created hurdles for people seeking care at hospitals and led to the suspension of a top official, the latest among a slew of bureaucrats to be punished as Beijing fumes over the situation.
The system crash meant that locals were unable to access their Covid infection status after Xi’an embarked on a new widespread round of nucleic acid tests, according to a media report.
The provincial government said in a statement later that the system was temporarily paralyzed due to overwhelming traffic, and being fixed. It had also experienced technical issues in December.
The provincial women’s federation is investigating reports that a pregnant woman in Xi’an lost her baby after being refused entry to a hospital on New Year’s Day because she couldn’t show she was infection-free via the health code app.
A video posted Tuesday showing what appeared to be a woman bleeding on the sidewalk outside a hospital in Xi’an’s Gaoxin district was trending on Weibo.
Similar complaints and criticisms were seen elsewhere on Chinese social media as patients failed to get timely treatment at hospitals already overwhelmed by the virus.
While the Xi’an outbreak is of the delta variant, the more-transmissible omicron strain now roiling the world will challenge the approach even further. Mainland China has not yet reported any community spread of omicron.
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