Cats, fish, and even vegetables: in its “Zero-Covid” strategy, China tests and disinfects at all costs

China is facing its worst outbreak since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also the last major planetary economy to remain isolated from the rest of the world with anti-Covid restrictions. To face this wave of the potentially fatal Omicron variant for the many unvaccinated seniors, Shanghai, by far the most affected city, placed all the inhabitants under confinement in early April.

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This quarantine of the country has led to many measures sometimes bordering on the absurd. Propaganda images of the regime thus show a veritable army of cleaners crisscrossing the streets of Beijing, and disinfecting at all costs: sidewalks, apartments, but also people, animals, and even vegetables… No place is spared.

The icing on the cake, the product sprayed by these “men in white” is actually chlorine dioxide, “a product harmful to the environment and which can also cause respiratory problems”, explains health expert Yanzhong Huang to our colleagues from TF1.

At a time when entire districts of the capital are cordoned off after the detection of a few cases, the health authorities are putting in place measures that are absurd to say the least. In some images posted on social networks, we can see people being tested against their will.

In other images, health workers perform nasopharyngeal tests on animals. Here on a chat.

You can also see them testing dogs, chickens, fish, and even… Vegetables.

As a reminder, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, affirmed on Tuesday May 10 that the “zero-Covid” strategy defended by Beijing was “not sustainable”. Words immediately censored on social networks and in the Chinese media.