(CNN) – The death of a 3-year-old child following an alleged gas leak in a confined residential complex in northwest China has sparked a new wave of outrage over the country’s strict zero-Covid policy.
The boy’s father said in a social media post that Covid equipment workers tried to stop him from leaving his compound in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, to seek care for his son, causing a delay which he says , it was fatal.
A father’s social media post Wednesday about his son’s death was met with a wave of public anger and grief, with several related hashtags amassing hundreds of millions of views the next day on Weibo, the Twitter-like platform from the China.
“Three years of a pandemic have been his whole life,” reads one of the comments.
It is the latest tragedy to fuel a growing reaction against China’s relentless zero-Covid policy, which continues to disrupt everyday life with relentless lockdowns, quarantines and large-scale test warrants, even as the rest of the world leaves behind. the pandemic.
Numerous similar cases involved people who died after immediate access to emergency medical care was denied during the lockdown, despite the insistence of Chinese officials, including leader Xi Jinping, that the country’s Covid policies ” they put people and their lives first. “
People line up for COVID testing on July 12, 2022 in Lanzhou, China.
one month of imprisonment
Much of Lanzhou, including the neighborhood where the boy’s family lives, has been in solitary confinement since the beginning of October.
The boy’s father said his wife and son fell ill around noon on Tuesday and were showing signs of gas poisoning. The mother’s condition improved after receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation from the father, but the boy fell into a coma, according to the man’s social media post.
The father said he made numerous attempts to call both an ambulance and the police, but was unable to get through. He said he then went to ask for help from Covid workers who were imposing the lockdown on his complex, but was turned down and told to ask for help from his community officials or to continue calling an ambulance himself. .
He said workers asked him to show a negative Covid test result, but he was unable to do so because no tests had been conducted overall in the previous 10 days.
She became desperate and eventually took her son out, where a “kindhearted” resident called a taxi to take them to the hospital, she wrote.
However, it was too late when they arrived and the doctors could not save his son.
“My son could have been saved if he had been taken to the hospital first,” he wrote.
According to online maps, the hospital is located just 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the boy’s home, a 10-minute drive.
The father claimed in his social media post that the police did not show up until after taking his son to the hospital. But local police said in a statement on Tuesday that they immediately rushed to the scene after receiving a call for help from the public and helped send two people, including the boy, to hospital 14 minutes later.
The police statement says the boy died from carbon monoxide poisoning and the mother remained in the hospital in stable condition, but did not mention whether the lockdown measures delayed his treatment.
CNN reached out to Lanzhou officials and the boy’s father for comment. The father did not answer.
On Thursday, the Lanzhou authorities released a statement expressing grief over the boy’s death and condolences to his family. They promised to “treat seriously” the officials and work units that failed to facilitate a timely rescue of the child.
“We have learned a painful lesson from this incident … and we will put people and their lives first in our work in the future,” the statement read.
demand answers
The boy’s death also inflamed the anger of the residents. Videos circulating on social media show residents taking to the streets to demand an answer from the authorities.
One shows a woman screaming at officers covered from head to toe in fireproof suits. “Ask your leader to come here and tell us what happened today,” she screams. In another, a man sings: “Give me back my freedom!”
Other videos show several buses with SWAT police officers arriving at the scene.
One shows rows of officers in fireproof suits marching down the street; many others show residents in a confrontation with uniformed police officers holding shields and wearing helmets and masks.
CNN cannot independently verify the videos, but a resident living nearby confirmed to CNN that he saw the SWAT team enter.
“They yelled ‘one, two, one’ (as they were marching down the street) so loud it could be heard 500 meters away,” the resident said.
He complained about Lanzhou’s “prevention of epidemics and excessive blockades” and said that censorship is increasingly severe.
“Now even knowing the truth has become an extravagant hope,” he said. “Who knows how many similar incidents have occurred across the country?”
In his social media post, the father claimed he was approached by someone claiming to work for a “civil organization” and offered 100,000 yuan (about $ 14,000) on condition that he sign an agreement pledging not to hold back the authorities. responsible.
“I didn’t sign it. All I want is an explanation (for my son’s death) “, she wrote.” I want (them) to tell me directly, why didn’t they let me go at that moment? “
The father’s posts on Weibo and Baidu, another online site, reporting the incident disappeared Wednesday night.
CNN’s Mengchen Zhang and Shawn Deng contributed to this report.
