Chinese authorities faced more anger yesterday after a second child's death was blamed on overzealous anti-virus enforcement, adding to frustration at controls that are confining millions of people to their homes.
A four-month-old girl died after suffering vomiting and diarrhea while in quarantine at a hotel in the Henan city of Zhengzhou. It took her father 11 hours to get help after emergency services balked at dealing with them, and she finally was sent to a hospital 100 kilometers away.
The death came after the Chinese Communist Party promised this month that people in quarantine would not be blocked from getting emergency help following an outcry over a three-year-old boy's death from carbon monoxide in the northwest.
His father blamed health workers in the city of Lanzhou, who he said tried to stop him from taking his son to a hospital.
People have gone online again to express anger at the zero-Covid strategy and demand that officials in Zhengzhou be punished for failing to help the public.
The party promised last week to ease quarantine and other restrictions under its zero-Covid strategy, which aims to isolate every infected person.
But leaders are also trying to dispel hopes the measures are about to end even as other countries ease controls.
A spike in infections over the past two weeks has led officials in areas across China to confine families to their homes or to order people into quarantine if a single case is found in their workplace or neighborhood.
Authorities yesterday reported 23,276 new cases throughout the country, and 20,888 of them had no symptoms. They included 9,680 cases in the current hot spot, Guangzhou.
Back in Zhengzhou, it was reported the four-month-old girl and her father were sent into quarantine on Saturday.
And an account on social media written by the father, identified as Li Baoliang, said he started calling the emergency hotline at noon on Monday after his daughter suffered vomiting and diarrhea.
A hotline response was that the girl was not sick enough to need emergency care. Health workers at the quarantine site then called an ambulance, but the crew refused to deal with them because the father tested positive for the virus.
The girl finally arrived at a hospital at 11pm but died despite efforts to revive her.
A Zhengzhou city official said the incident was under investigation.
