Thread by @RobbieBarnett

A 🧵about COVID management in Lhasa during the first 90+ days of lockdown, when officials put tens of 1000s of healthy people in sub-standard quarantine camps - a method now spreading across China. It summarises this article, which has more details: chinafile.com/reporting-opin…

Today, movement is gradually being allowed in Lhasa after 100+ days of lockdown, and the situation is easing. But some areas are still locked down: rfa.org/english/news/t…. On average, 5 new cases were reported each day in Lhasa over the last month. So COVID has not disappeared.

The current COVID outbreak in Tibet began on August 7 after 900+ days without a case. Judging from WeChat posts, public opinion in Tibet seems initially to have been genuinely supportive of the state and the epidemic workers (despite excess spraying, etc

https://twitter.com/RobbieBarnett/status/1560620748749688832

).

On Sept 4, after 27 days of lockdown, Tibet (the TAR) declared the entire region had “achieved or basically achieved” Xi Jinping’s goal, ‘zero-COVID in society’ t.ly/C9-C. This turned out to mean that people with COVID & contacts had been moved to quarantine camps.

In early September videos by Tibetans started to appear on Douyin (Tiktok) describing acute distress. t.ly/QMDU. A number of Chinese-speaking Tibetans and individual Chinese in Lhasa then posted similar concerns on Weibo (a PRC microblogging site), mostly firsthand.

On September 15, the criticisms went viral across Chinese social media, Many were on a Weibo thread #TibetEpidemic# (#西藏疫情#) - it got 210 million hits in four days. Numerous Chinese on social media called on their government to pay attention to the situation in Tibet.

Most of the online criticisms were about the compulsory transfer of people to “centralized isolation points 集中隔离点”, including “makeshift hospitals”, called fangcang (square cabins) in Chinese. Fangcang are endlessly praised in PRC media as a miracle solution for pandemics.

The online videos and Weibo posts described their experience of vast numbers of people, mainly Tibetans, being sent to these fangcang t.ly/5fjw - even if only 1 or 2 people had tested positive in their building, compound or community.

This was because China requires local governments to send all “close contacts” and “sub-close contacts” to be “centrally isolated” in fangcang or similar camps, usually for 14 days, even if they test negative each day for COVID.

Beijing allowed close contacts to isolate at home only in rare situations, and Lhasa seems to have defined “close contacts” very broadly. The numbers of people it put in fangcang appears to have been much higher relative to population than in other cities in China.

The government built 17 large fangcang (1000+ inmates) in Lhasa alone, mostly converted sports stadiums, exhibition halls, shopping malls, unfinished apartment buildings, & apparently even a multi-story carpark, plus c.40 smaller ones, one official told us off the record.

As in fangcangs throughout China, conditions were often not good, with usually hundreds of people in one space, people often struggling to get food, and limited sanitation. Some examples are showing in videos here: t.ly/CIsa.

By Sept 27, according to official figures, 140,000+ people had been or were still in TAR fangcang/quarantine camps – and 42,937 were still in them on that day t.ly/82a4. (The TAR government has not issued figures for those in "centalised isolation" since Sept 30).

Lhasa officials conducted all transfers during the night, with inmates spending hours on crowded buses, often under police escort. It usually took 6-9 hours or more for people to be taken to a camp, even if only a few kms away. t.ly/FjLP t.ly/4uct

87% of people sent to these camps in Tibet were close contacts – ie., they were healthy (but many were v. elderly). But they were in the same camps as positive cases with mild or no symptoms. So there is a widespread fear that going to a fangcang will lead to contracting COVID.

On Sept 17, 2 days after news of the Lhasa situation went viral on Chinese social media, the Lhasa government made a rare apology on TV, promising “to strive to improve the service guarantee level of fangcang, isolation points, and other services.” t.ly/1PWpN

At the same time, social media criticisms were removed or replaced with positive messages t.ly/Z3Q9. By Oct 10, Lhasa police had punished 1,081 people for epidemic-related offences like “going out without permission” & “spreading rumours.” t.ly/zpYW

In the last month, new cases in Lhasa average just 5 a day, so the Lhasa fangcang are likely to be less busy now. But far larger isolation fangcang are under construction throughout China, according to videos at twitter.com/songpinganq. Some are said to hold up to 30,000 people.

On Nov 17, China had 1.05m “close contacts under medical observation”, ie., in fangcang or home isolation t.ly/ZQ-z - that's 7 times the figure 2 months earlier. Unless policy changes, cities throughout China look set to undergo the Lhasa fangcang experience. /end/