Staff shortage: in China, provinces encourage positive Covid cases to work
People in front of a stall in the Huangpu district of Shanghai on December 19, 2022. © Hector RETAMAL / AFP
Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
2 mins
After three years of strict policy, known as “zero Covid”, China has changed its strategy by letting the contaminations fly away.
Faced with the shortage of personnel, some provinces are now allowing positive people to go to work,
“as usual”
.
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From our correspondent in Beijing,
Covid at work in China!
If these are not exactly the terms used in the notices published on Sunday, December 18, by municipal and provincial authorities in the east and west of the country, the spirit is not far away.
The central government, which has relaxed its “zero Covid” policy, is now banking on the immunity of the population.
The objective is first of all economic: he wants to relaunch as quickly as possible the growth slowed down by the last months of confinements and health restrictions.
Forced immunity could lead to 80% of Chinese being infected and / or vaccinated by the meeting of the National People's Congress in March 2023. China could then return to
"
normal life
"
(hear pre-Covid ) according to Zhong Nanshan, one of the figures in the fight against the epidemic in China.
Measures to compensate for the staff shortage
As a result, the Chinese went in two weeks from strict blocking of the virus, to the end of the prevention and control of viral pneumonia, to its requalification as flu by propaganda.
Since then, we have witnessed a surge in contamination and photos of empty arteries in phantom megalopolises due to the sick have invaded social networks.
To cope with the shortage of staff,
infected doctors continue to work
, some districts in Beijing have called on healthy and vaccinated residents to join the team of couriers to help deliver food.
The southern city of Chongqing, like the eastern province of Zhejiang in the East, called on Sunday for
"
mildly symptomatic
"
people to come to work
"
normally
"
,
"
if necessary
"
and taking
"
personal protection".
»
“Too radical” policy
A decision not really surprising given that it accompanies the new slogan
“
everyone is responsible for their health
”
.
The latter is not immune to criticism on social networks.
Many Internet users talk about their own experience and question the word of the health authorities concerning the
"
benign and mild
"
nature of Omicron infections.
Foxconn workers had already denounced
the "inhumanity"
of the management of
the company at the end of October, which would not have protected them from the virus
.
If certain local committees were overzealous in the application of health measures in the “zero-Covid” era, there would now be a runaway in the opening.
"
This policy is too radical
," reads
the Weibo network
.
"
Abroad, positive people stay at home for seven days, while they recover, while avoiding spreading the virus"
, or
"it's unfair to go and infect others at the office"
, some still judge .
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