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• 2022-09-09

  HIST30068 China’s Zero Covid Policy Story 3

  Early September this year, my uncle Kun Ye went on a business trip to Xinjiang. Unfortunately, as he arrived, positive cases were starting to pop up in the region. He quarantined in the hotel for 20 days, waiting patiently, hoping the situation to improve so he can get his work done. When it got closer to October, a friend in the local government gave him a call, advising him to return to Hubei asap, otherwise it will only get harder and harder for him to go home. He took that advise and flied back to Jingmen, Hubei, it turned out to be a smart decision. By the start of October, no more flights were either going to or from Xinjiang. The whole region went into quarantine, and people was told by the local government to prepare for up to 7-10 days’ worth of food and other necessities, for the upcoming lockdown. After Uncle Kun’s arrival to Jingmen, he was told that since he just came from Xinjiang, a place with growing covid cases, he must first go to the square cabins and quarantine for a week. “Life was so bad there”, he told me: “the meals hardly had any meat.” Well, he was a meat lover. That was not the worst for him. During his isolation, cases appeared in Jingmen as well, (since they just accepted a flight from Xinjiang). A case was found in “Kailin Park”, the community which he lived, and the whole Kailin Park was locked up by blue iron walls, people can neither get in or out. With no home to return to, Uncle Kun went to our house; and since I was studying overseas in Australia, he slept in my empty room for a week. Frustrated, he told me over the phone, that “so much time was wasted last month, and nothing was done.”