A northern China county imposed stay-at-home quarantine upon citizens during Chinese New Year holidays starting from Feb. 1, sending hundreds of drones to monitor movement in the region. But one resident said the Chinese regime’s harsh measures aim at enforcing control rather than battling the outbreak.
So far, the actual situation, including the number of new cases, remains unconfirmed due to the lack of transparency in China’s pandemic reporting system.
A resident living in the downtown area, surnamed Lin, verified with The Epoch Times on Feb. 3 that the whole county was thrown into a strict lockdown.
“I knew of more than 200 residents were taken away from the village of Yezhuang,” he said. “Now nobody is allowed to leave home.”
According to Lin, all communities were designated as closed control areas and any visitors would get a yellow health code as soon as they set foot in the region.
“[Police] will arrest you within ten minutes if you show up on the street unless you have a special permit,” said Lin. “Now, big data leaves you with nowhere to go.”
He cited one of his friends as an example, who attempted to stealthily return to his birthplace village. But a police vehicle intercepted the man and disrupted his travel plans even before he left the town he was living in. Police officers gave him a warning and set him free, warning that he would face a 15-day detention if caught again.
Lin confirmed use of drones by the local authorities to control movement as well as teams of police cars patrolling on the streets.
“Every day, drones keep flying to and fro in the air,” said Lin. “Right now, while I’m receiving your interview, they are in the sky.”
He said that there was no atmosphere for celebrating the Chinese New Year, the largest holiday in the country.
A Tianjin-based resident, surnamed Liu, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 3 that he questioned the motives behind the Chinese communist regime’s harsh anti-COVID measures.
“I think that the primary cause to the government’s harsh curbs is maintaining social stability,” Liu said. “I heard from a community worker that they are banned from disclosing internal information to outsiders under their internal rules.”
“Personally speaking, I feel the authorities are conducting stability drills and getting more skilled in surveillance over time,” Liu added. “I don’t believe what the CCP says, not even a single punctuation mark.”
He was skeptical of so-called China’s “zero-COVID” policy and of whether true tests were conducted, he added.
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