China | Lockdown legions

The extraordinary manpower behind China’s zero-covid strategy

Millions of workers battle thousands of cases

Counting contacts
|BEIJING

THE THIRD fall was the one that finally put Gao Ying in the hospital. As a community health worker, she had been helping Hangzhou, her home city, fight a surge in covid-19 cases. She had not slept in her own bed for two weeks. She was exhausted. Still, on March 18th she set off for a meeting on local covid-control measures. That’s when she collapsed three times in a lift, the third time smacking her head on the wall. Video of the incident was captured by a CCTV camera and shared on social media.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “The footsoldiers of zero-covid”

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From the March 26th 2022 edition

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