Chinese parents separated from kids after positive COVID test

2022-09-03 09:10:02 By : Ms. Blair Huang

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Terrified parents in China are being separated from their children if they test positive for COVID-19.

One mom in Shanghai who brought her toddler to a local hospital with a fever last week says the girl was whisked away to a quarantine center for children, while she stayed at the hospital.

Both Esther Zhao and her daughter tested positive for COVID-19, but Zhao said she’s gotten one brief message that her daughter was fine — despite repeated pleas for information about her child.

Her husband, who also tested positive, is at a separate quarantine site.

“There have been no photos at all… I’m so anxious, I have no idea what situation my daughter is in,” Zhao said Saturday. “The doctor said Shanghai rules is that children must be sent to designated points, adults to quarantine centers, and you’re not allowed to accompany the children.”

Zhao was even more upset after images of crying children at a Shanghai health facility went viral in China.

The photos and videos posted anonymously on China’s Weibo and Douyin social media platforms showed crying babies kept three to a cot. In one video, a groaning toddler crawls out of a room with four child-sized beds pushed against the wall.

The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said the photos and videos circulating on internet were not a ” infant quarantine facility,” but were scenes taken when a hospital was moving its pediatric ward to another building to “improve the hospital environment.”

The Shanghai government declined comment.

As China’s most populous city and main financial hub battles its largest ever COVID outbreak, stories like Zhao’s and videos of separated children are angering residents and raising questions about the costs of Beijing’s “dynamic clearance” policy to fight the spread of the disease.

Shanghai on Saturday reported 6,051 locally transmitted asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and 260 symptomatic cases for April 1, versus 4,144 asymptomatic cases and 358 symptomatic ones on the previous day.

The number of cases in Shanghai is small by global standards. However, Chinese authorities have vowed to stick with “dynamic clearance,” aiming to test for, trace and centrally quarantine all positive cases.