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State of emergency in China: Families have to burn dead relatives on the streets. The crematoria are struggling with too many corona deaths.
Chiara SchlenzEditor News
There are terrible scenes that are currently taking place in Chinese cities. Family members have to burn the bodies of their loved ones in the streets. The crematoria are overloaded. There are too many corona deaths.
Almost overnight, the government’s “Zero Covid” policy was lifted – and chaos has reigned in the country ever since. The measures imposed by ruler Xi Jinping (69) have caused a lot of damage – socially and economically. In some industries, such as hospitality, more than a million businesses have gone bankrupt nationwide. Unemployment among young people is nearly 20 percent. A consequence of the tough Corona policy – with curfews, contact bans and strict quarantine measures for visitors. Entire cities have been locked down.
“Such deep cuts in everyday business and personal life cause enormous damage to society, from which the economy and the population will suffer for a long time,” says Yufan Jiang (66), China expert at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). View. He compares the measures and the sudden easing with a high dam that was first laboriously built and then suddenly breaks.
This is an infection tsunami
However, the government had no other choice. “The opening was unavoidable,” explains the China expert. The pressure was too great, the Chinese were too angry. There were protests across the country. Thousands took to the streets. A rarity in China. At first, Xi tried to crack down on the uprisings. And finally, loosening was granted. Since then, Corona has been spreading like wildfire.
Despite the precarious situation in their own country. President Xi himself glosses over the situation. The prevention and control measures are entering a “new phase”, “everyone is working resolutely” in combating the virus, he emphasized.
Jiang describes the “new phase” as a dam bursting that triggered an infection tsunami: According to internal estimates, 248 million people or 18 percent of the population were infected with corona in the first three weeks of December in the massive wave of infections. The official statistics for the same period nationwide only speak of 62,000 infections. At the beginning of January, the country stopped counting.
“Taking back lost time”
The number of skilled workers who are missing from work as a result is similar to that caused by the forced isolation of the last three years. “Certainly the Covid-related failures are a great burden on the economy, especially productions or services where presence is absolutely required.”
For Yufan Jiang it is clear: A sustainable solution is needed – not just damage limitation.
For the Chinese entrepreneurs, however, it is now a matter of “gaining back the lost time”. No sooner had the corona measures been relaxed than trade delegations were sent from the coastal provinces to Europe and Japan in the hope of “bringing orders home for companies that are now starving”.
No wonder, because the measures were not helpful for China’s economic objectives, which were envisaged according to the motto “rise in the east and decline in the west” – a thesis based on the course of the sun and, in a figurative sense, on the rise China indicates. The FHNW lecturer on Blick: “This goal is a long way off.”