Covid test-kit workers clash with police as China lifts curbs
CHINESE police have clashed with hundreds of workers at a Covid test kit factory after a number were allegedly sacked and denied their pay following the lifting of restrictions.
Zybio, the manufacturer, reportedly sacked workers and deprived others of wages after the Chinese government abandoned its zero-covid policy.
Protests erupted in the city of Chongqing in south-western China, according to footage shared online.
There was no immediate comment from Zybio, which makes antigen tests.
Videos showed people chanting “Return our money”, and throwing traffic cones, crates and chairs at police with riot shields.
Test kits were apparently seen flying out of some of the crates.
The demonstration over the weekend came as China deals with the consequences of last month’s reversal of a zero-covid policy that harmed the country’s economic growth and led to public frustration.
China’s about-turn followed protests in several cities and universities against its zero-covid approach.
For much of the past three years, Chinese authorities have tried to stamp out all traces of the virus, through mandatory quarantines, mass lockdowns and frequent testing of millions of people.
Such mass testing has relied on nucleic acid tests, and the Chinese antigen test kits, which Zybio produces, have mainly been exported.
But after the country scrapped mass testing in early December, demand for antigen tests, which can be carried out at home, has soared.
Posts on social media alleged that Zybio had recruited staff in recent weeks, and then dismissed them.
The clash between police and protesters took place on Saturday night and into yesterday morning, social media users claimed. Yesterday, searches for the confrontation appeared to be censored on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.
The police, who used loudspeakers to tell protesters to “cease illegal activities” according to footage online, declined to comment.
The videos circulated as China yesterday lifted almost all of its border restrictions, with foreign visitors and returning residents no longer having to undergo quarantine. China also reopened its border with Hong Kong for the first time in three years, with Hongkongers travelling to the mainland to see members of their family living there.
The moves come as China grapples with unprecedented infections and international accusations of a lack of transparency in case numbers, deaths and genetic sequencing data.
Yesterday, China’s National Health Commission reported more than 7,000 new cases and two deaths, even as individual provinces reported that there had been as many as one million cases per day.