Chinese citizens running out of food, essentials amid harsh COVID-19 restrictions
Highlight
- Two years into the pandemic, the Chinese government is failing to provide essential commodities to its people
- China’s Xi’an city faces dire food shortages
- Locals have now claimed on social media that they are not allowed to step out of their house
Millions of Chinese residents are struggling to meet basic daily needs amid the country’s heavy-handed and harsh approach to handling the COVID-19 lockdown. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government has failed to provide essential supplies to its people, even with stringent restrictions on human rights abuses, a media report said. have been installed.
China’s Xi’an city, which has been under a harsh lockdown since December 23 last year, is facing a dire food shortage. Patients are facing a lot of trouble due to non-availability of supplies in critical condition.
Many people have complained online that they survived one day on a bowl of oatmeal and were on the verge of starvation.
Recognizing that there were problems providing essential supplies to local people, officials initially refused to budge on the position that “the total supply of daily necessities in Xi’an is sufficient”, the report said.
As per reports, locals have now taken to social media, claiming that they were not being allowed to step out of their housing premises even though they were short of food.
A user wrote on the social media platform, “How do we live? What do we eat? A few days ago, we could go out once to buy groceries, but it has been cancelled. All online grocery apps.” Either sold out or not being delivered.”
“Even in 2020, Wuhan, another Chinese city considered the epicenter of the pandemic, was also placed under a similar lockdown.”
About 11 million people were confined and imprisoned in their homes for several painful months. The report said that the lockdown of 13 million people in Xi’an is now China’s biggest lockdown since Wuhan.
Like Wuhan, the city of Xi’an is now bearing the brunt of China’s top-down political system and “whatever it costs” approach to achieve its zero-Covid policy goal.
A user on Chinese social media wrote, “No one cares what you die from except COVID-19.”
In Henan’s Gushi province, only one symptomatic and one asymptomatic case were reported. And yet, about 1 million residents cannot leave the city. Similar restrictions have been imposed in Xuchang, where one million residents of Yuzhou city are under lockdown.
Authorities have put the city of Anyang under curfew after 58 COVID-19 cases were reported, while Tianjin after 21 COVID-19 cases were reported from the city of 14 million, the report said. The movement of people has been stopped.
Meanwhile, on January 8 this year, residents of Xi’an had another unpleasant surprise. It was learned that the Hema Fresh food delivery app stopped offering online shopping “as per the pandemic control demands of the government”.
Owned by Alibaba Group, Hema Jiansheng was one of the few grocery stores delivering food to several districts in Xi’an. Officials claimed that violations of hygiene norms were reported from several branches of the supermarket chain.
But netizens erupted in anger. One Weibo user wrote, “This is shameless. During the outbreak in Xi’an, the only company providing us with food is being re-examined.” Taking advantage of the situation, the remaining shops increased their prices manifold, the report said.
(with inputs from ANI)
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