Covid 19 coronavirus: Chinese officials bolt residents into their homes to stop spread

China's fight against Covid reached new extremes after officials in the northern Hebei province were shown sealing residents' doors with wires and bolts to prevent them from going outside.

Covid workers used wires to barricade doors and installed iron bolts on the floors in order to prevent residents from leaving their homes, according to videos that circulated on Chinese social media.

The measures applied to those who refused to voluntarily hand over their apartment keys so they could be locked in from the outside, according to the independent publication Caixin Global.

The videos sparked outrage online, with social media users pointing out that the measures risked endangering people's lives as they would have been unable to leave their homes in case of an emergency.

"I'm so angry. They really don't treat people like humans," wrote one commenter on Weibo, China's version of Twitter.

To prevent residents leaving their flats during lockdown, some pandemic workers used wires and iron bolts to barricade the doors from the outside in northern China’s Hebei province. pic.twitter.com/YTiHn01o1B

— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) May 3, 2022

Faced with the backlash, authorities in Qianan county blamed individual residential communities for their "simplistic and radical means" of keeping Covid in check.

"We are investigating and will modify the policy," the Qianan Pandemic Prevention and Control Office wrote on the Chinese app WeChat. "We are also looking into the possibility of installing alarms to replace current methods."

In the same county, authorities banned farmers from doing fieldwork in order to curb the spread of the virus, but videos emerged later showing people sneaking out in the middle of the night to plough their fields.

Millions of others remain under various forms of lockdown across China, where the rapid spread of the Omicron variant is challenging the country's draconian zero-Covid policy.

Beijing ramps up Covid restrictions

Beijing on Tuesday ramped up Covid-related restrictions by banning certain residents, including those from neighbourhoods labelled "medium" and "high risk" for Covid transmission, from leaving the city. Residents will be held "legally responsible" if they leave Beijing in violation of the rules and cause the spread of Covid, said Tian Wei, director of the external information division of Beijing's publicity department, in a press conference.

The city has also shut down dozens of subway stations.

While Shanghai remains China's Covid epicentre, with 4982 new locally transmitted infections reported on Tuesday out of a total of 5428 new transmissions nationwide – other cities are also gradually imposing new restrictions.

In Zhengzhou, a city of 10 million in the central Henan province, the government announced citywide Covid testing and a partial lockdown after several cases were linked to the local high-speed railway station. Residents from the main districts will be put under a partial lockdown from May 4 until May 10, the government said.

People responded by rushing to stock up on food and other essentials. Videos circulating online showed jammed roads and crowded supermarkets, as many in China fear a repeat of the Shanghai lockdown, where residents have complained of insufficient food supplies during the weeks-long lockdown.

"It is saddening that more and more horrible things are happening because of Covid prevention," wrote one Weibo user, commenting on the measures in Hebei province. "Is this what feeling proud of China should look like?"