Crowds of people in Guangzhou crashed through COVID barriers and marched down streets in chaotic scenes on Monday night, according to videos posted online.
BEIJING, Nov 15 - Crowds of people in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou crashed through COVID barriers and marched down streets in chaotic scenes on Monday night, according to videos posted online, in a show of public resentment over coronavirus curbs.
Several hashtags related to the topic of "riots" in the area were scrubbed from China's Twitter-like Weibo by Tuesday morning. Still, China is scrambling to limit the damage of its zero-COVID policy nearly three years into the pandemic, as the latest in a spate ofshowed retail sales fell in October and factory output grew more slowly than expected.
"It would become a testing point regarding the government’s determination to push for the relaxation of COVID control measures," they said. While that increased the overall number of sites, it also led to long waiting times for many, fuelling frustration, as many workplaces and other venues still require negative test results from within 24 hours.
But experts warn that full reopening will require a massive vaccination booster effort, given low levels of herd immunity resulting from China's isolation during the pandemic. It will also require a change in messaging, they say, in a country where catching COVID is widely feared.
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