Guangzhou (AsiaNews / Agencies) – Residents of the Guangdong capital have taken t social media to denounce chronic food shortages or rotten food supplied by the authorities, after more than a week of lockdown adopted to contain a new Covid-19 outbreak.
As Apple Daily reports today, some of them said they hadn't eaten a grain of rice for two days.
The southern Chinese province has been struggling with a resurgence of the coronavirus since the end of May, especially affected by the Delta variant, which appeared for the first time in India.
Yesterday the health authorities counted 11 new cases of contagion; the average of the last week was 12 infections per day. Since May 28, 165 new infections have been recorded across Guangdong.
Information about the food shortage in Guangzhou appeared on the web on June 9. Videos posted on YouTube and Weibo show people protesting against visiting city officials in areas under sanitary isolation. Others criticize the local government for restrictions on movement, which prevent them from obtaining basic necessities.
District city committees responded to complaints by promising home delivery of three meals a day for each resident.
The coronavirus first manifested itself in Wuhan (Hubei) at the end of 2019; in the summer of 2020, the Chinese government said it had successfully contained its spread. Although the numbers remain far from those of the hardest-hit countries at the moment, Chinese authorities are concerned about the clinical data of the Guangdong outbreak.
According to the government funded Global Times, 10-12% of infected patients in the province are seriously ill: in the initial epidemic in Wuhan and in 20 other areas of the country, the average was 2-3%, with peaks of 8-10% in very limited areas.
