With rising Covid cases across the country, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is setting up makeshift hospitals and quarantine sites to accommodate at least 2,50,000 people.
China reported 38,645 new Covid-19 infections on Monday, of which 3,624 were symptomatic and 35,021 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday. A day before, the country saw over 40,000 new cases of coronavirus.
Visuals of the construction of the quarantine sites are being widely shared on social media platforms. NEXTA, an Eastern European media, shared visuals from the camp site which showed the construction of a quarantine centre for nearly 80,000 people.
China, which is battling coronavirus in numerous major cities, is facing protests from its citizens over its zero-Covid policy. The protest comes on the back of President Xi Jinping's signature zero-Covid policy, which has been in place since the pandemic began in 2020.
The "zero-Covid" strategy includes mass testing, strict isolation rules, travel restrictions and local lockdowns. It aims at eliminating Covid-19 cases rather than mitigating them.
Protests in the country began after the deaths of 10 people in an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang on Thursday. The public believes the deaths were a result of excessive lockdown measures which delayed rescue.
At least 10 people were killed and nine injured when the fire broke out, according to the local fire department.
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