[imagesource: Twitter]

We all remember COVID-19.

The masks are off, we’re living in… wait for it… the new normal, and we can even buy closed shoes and Woolies roast chickens and cigarettes and booze.

As farcical as certain elements of our country’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic were, spare a thought for those in China.

The Chinese government’s zero-COVID policies have finally driven many to breaking point and there has been genuinely distressing footage emerging in the past few months and weeks.

Things escalated further this week after residents in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou tore down barriers meant to confine them to their homes and took to the streets.

CNN reports:

The public protest – an exceedingly rare event in China, where authorities keep tight control over dissent – appears as yet another sign of the mounting public anger and desperation over the government’s stringent zero-Covid policies.

The scenes in Guangzhou, which reported over 5,100 new Covid cases on Tuesday – the vast majority asymptomatic – come as Beijing’s unrelenting drive to stamp out the spread of the virus faces questions of sustainability, amid fast-spreading new variants.

This sort of unrest would be par for the course in many parts of the world.

In China, it’s very much the opposite:

That’s not the disturbing footage we warned you about.

There are fears that the country is on the verge of an explosive mental health crisis brought on by isolation and the fear of sudden, prolonged, and unexpected lockdowns.

Brace yourself – this is not easy viewing:

As some Chinese provinces mark 100 days of lockdowns, public unrest is growing over the country’s Covid restrictions, which have no end in sight. People are struggling to get enough food and essentials, prompting a new crisis of mental health. pic.twitter.com/PFrwLtD6o4

— CNN (@CNN) November 18, 2022

Another CNN report breaks down some alarming numbers:

Demand for counseling services is up, and a nationwide survey conducted across China in 2020 found that nearly 35% of respondents were dealing with psychological distress amid the pandemic…

During Shanghai’s marathon two-month lockdown this year, phones were reportedly ringing off the hook at the offices of mental health specialists. In my apartment complex, two people tragically took their lives during the citywide shutdown, and speculation in our community chat group is that the lockdown was at least partially to blame…

Chinese social media users lamented the role lockdowns have played in fueling mental health issues and criticized government officials for not paying attention to the needs of those trapped in their apartments.

We cut to Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma taking notes and lamenting how she let us off the hook so easily.

Think of all those illicit cigarettes tobacco smuggler Adriano Mazzotti could have sold if our lockdowns dragged on for a few more years.

It’s worth pointing out that COVID-19 is still killing people in South Africa, even if the general public has largely moved on. According to a recent report on The Daily Maverick, in the past four weeks, 125 deaths from COVID-19 were reported:

The real number of deaths is likely much more than this. A weekly report published by the Medical Research Council and the University of Cape Town calculates the number of excess deaths — the deaths above the historical average before Covid: there have been close to 50,000 excess deaths so far this year.

While in earlier waves the researchers were able to estimate that 85% to 95% of these excess deaths were due to Covid, the changing nature of the epidemic has made it much harder to estimate how many of this year’s excess deaths are due to Covid.

Either way, it’s still around.

Small mercies that our government isn’t taking a leaf out of China’s book when it comes to totally over-the-top COVID-19 policies.

[sources:cnn&cnn&dailymav]