“We are locked in.” Hugues, a 33-year-old French expatriate to Guangzhou (Canton) in China for work, has been confined in his Haizhu district for 25 days. Due to the very strict zero Covid policy implemented by the government, he is allowed to go out to his house to walk or do his shopping, but no more.
Since the end of October, bars, restaurants, non-essential shops and entertainment venues have been closed. And above all, you cannot leave your district under any pretext.
Incidents “almost every day”
“A fence has been installed around our neighborhood and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get out of it. It really is a quarantine zone,” the Frenchman told BFMTV.com, explaining that huge “plastic barriers filled with water , 1.70 m tall and all tied up” were installed to prevent the population from leaving “with guards all the time.”
“Almost every day we see incidents. Recently a group of people broke down the barriers all together to try to escape the neighborhood (…) It’s impressive ”, she continues.
“We are like in a huge prison with guards outside and groups of people escaping,” he adds. “It reinforces the impression that we are not free to move (…) and gives a general feeling of suffocation.”
“We don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow”
This man, who came to settle in the city 7 years ago for business, deplores “the lack of information” to which they have access. “There really is this feeling that we don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow, or how long it will last,” he laments.
“In recent days, there have been rumors that a strict lockdown will be established in the neighborhood. The government has officially denied it, but the problem is that people are starting to mistrust them”, explains Hugues. who affirms that similar announcements had been made in Shanghai a few hours before the total confinement.
China is the latest country to practice the zero Covid policy, which consists of taking restrictive measures as soon as a case appears, quarantining people who test positive in centers and requiring almost daily PCR tests to access public places.
A strategy that weighs heavily on the economy, and that begins to generate both misunderstanding and boredom in the population.
“There are still many decisions that are difficult for us to understand,” admits the expatriate, who does not hide that he plans to return to France next year, once he has a visa for himself and his entire family in his pocket.
“Most foreigners leave the country”
Professionally, this retailer of spare parts for computer equipment in France admits that “it’s a bit tough”, and evokes “out of stock”. The young man also explains that the difficulties in receiving or sending packages “weigh heavily on him”, especially since “supermarkets are robbed” at the slightest rumor.
Hugues, who is also a part-time teacher, does not hide the fact that he lacks ties to the outside world: “We see each other among the neighbors, but we have more contacts outside the neighborhood, nor with the students,” he confesses. .
“People avoid getting together because we don’t always know precisely what we can or can’t do. In any case, there are very few people on the street”, testifies this neighbor.
“The foreign community is dwindling here. Since the confinement in Shanghai, most foreigners try to leave the country when they can, ”adds the Frenchman. Tired of this new way of life, Hugues expressed another concern: that of contracting Covid-19 and “being taken to makeshift hospitals, which are actually kind of big rooms full of beds but not very well cared for.”
As for the locals, Hugues explains that some are beginning to become aware of the gap between Chinese measures and those of the rest of the world thanks to the Soccer World Cup in Qatar.
“Many people have no way of knowing what is happening outside (China). And watching football, they were surprised that abroad you can go out freely, without a mask, for example. Some may start to think that there is another way to do it.”
lift multiplication
“The first confinement made a lot of sense” to prevent the spread of the virus, analyzes this resident. “The problem is that when the government bets on an idea, it is very difficult for it to move forward, not reverse it, or at least rectify the trajectory.”
Currently, the tension is such that riots have broken out in several cities of the country. Last week, exasperated residents poured out at some tube stations from Hugues’ home to express their discontent. A revolt that he explains by the fact that the people who lived in this district were mainly “very poorly paid” textile workers and “with catastrophic living conditions”.
“These are very poor basic areas that have been the most affected by the epidemic,” the young man tries to analyze. So when the strict lockdown was decided, “therefore people had to face a lot of shortages and found themselves totally dependent on government arrivals of water, food and medicine.”
In recent weeks, the uprisings have multiplied in various cities of the country. Violent protests erupted in Zhengzhou, a city in central China that is home to a huge iPhone factory, on Thursday, following a lockdown of six million people ordered on Thursday.
The French Embassy in China diplomatically criticized this Friday on a social network the Asian giant’s Covid zero policy, an unusual message much discussed and welcomed this Friday by the Chinese exasperated by this health policy.
Source: BFM TV
