COVID-Positive Forced to Work as China’s Pandemic Strategy Collapses

'Sudden and unexpected 180-degree turn': China affairs expert

COVID-19 patients in the lobby of the Chongqing No. 5 People's Hospital in China's southwestern city of Chongqing, on Dec. 23, 2022. (Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images)

As China experiences a dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases following the sudden reversal of its zero-COVID policies in early December, experts say the situation in the country is almost a mirror image of life under the draconian policies that saw millions in strict lockdowns or quarantine facilities over the past three years. Pandemic policy has taken a 180-degree turn in less than three weeks.

Although the rising death toll in the country of 1.4 billion is impossible to calculate, many crematoriums and funeral homes are operating around the clock. Meanwhile, in many places, those who test positive for the virus are being ordered to work as long as they can still stand. COVID-infected couriers continue to make deliveries and infected health care workers care for the sick. Those who test negative for the virus are now the voiceless minority.

On Dec. 23, the health department in Dongguan, in southeast China’s Guangdong Province, reported that the number of healthcare workers in the city’s public hospitals and healthcare institutions who tested positive for COVID-19 or had a fever had reached 2,528. The report notes “this figure is for reference only. The real situation is likely to be worse.”

Under China’s current policy of “no COVID-19 tests until absolutely necessary,” health care workers must keep working, despite COVID-19 symptoms, until they are incapacitated.

The exploding number of COVID-19 patients has far exceeded the capacity of China’s medical system. To relieve the crisis, village clinics, acupuncture, traditional medicine, and dental facilities have been converted into “fever clinics” to treat COVID-19 patients.

Currently, many workplaces in China are encouraging employees with mild symptoms to remain at work, so those who are infected and those who are not are working together. Isolating from the virus has become a thing of the past.

COVID-Negative Are the Minority

In an ironic reversal, those who test negative for COVID-19 may now be asked to quarantine, as in the case of a tech company in Changsha, in central China’s Hunan Province. The company sent out a notice—later posted online—stating that two employees who tested negative for the virus should quarantine at home because they “could not prove they were immune.” The rest of the company’s 34 employees, who tested positive, could continue to go to work. The notice stated that the two COVID-negative employees could not apply to return to work until they were proven immune from COVID-19.

On Dec. 25, China affairs commentator Yang Guiyuan, who lives in Japan, spoke with The Epoch Times about the situation: “The difference between the current state of China’s pandemic prevention and the harsh ‘zero-COVID’ policy three weeks ago is massive. From the previous closure to the present lifting of the closure, the country had a sudden and unexpected 180-degree turn.”

This should not surprise those who know how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operates, says Yang. “This is also the usual practice of the CCP. On the surface, the CCP pretends to be acting in the interest of the majority of the people, but in fact, everything is done to protect the CCP’s own interests.”

Yang further explained: “The CCP has always conducted campaigns to hit the minority group, and those who were targeted do not have any rights, just like the people who were positive for COVID before. They were being rounded up and sent to quarantine facilities. Now the people without COVID [have become] the minority and have no right to speak up about having to work with people who have COVID.”