Outrage as China pushes human rights boundaries with plans for FLU LOCKDOWN

FOLLOWING the recent uproar in China that led to the ‘zero Covid’ restrictions finally being dropped, the local authorities in one city have now sparked a backlash by saying they may turn to lockdowns again to combat flu outbreaks.

As reported by the BBC, officials in Xi’an announced that they will lock down areas and shut schools if an outbreak poses a “severe threat”, according to an emergency response plan published on Wednesday.

China is currently experiencing a surge in flu cases just as the latest Covid wave was dying down, leading to a shortage of antiviral medication at pharmacies across the country.

However, internet users have hit out at possible plans to enforce Covid-like restrictions again, insisting that flu outbreaks were common before Covid but life continued as normal, without the need to resort to such drastic measures.

Xi’an experienced some of the country’s strictest lockdowns during the pandemic, with residents banned from leaving their homes at all for a whole month in December 2021.

“To local residents who were traumatised by the lockdown measures not long ago, the return to the same draconian method in coping with flu outbreaks is by no means justified,” Huang Yanzhong, an expert on global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the BBC.

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