They came for a beach holiday. Now they're trapped in China's latest Covid lockdown

 

The Chinese resort city of Sanya is known for its sandy beaches, high-end hotels and duty-free shopping.

Known for its sandy beaches, luxury resorts and duty-free shopping, the city of Sanya on China's tropical Hainan island has long been a popular getaway for Chinese middle- and upper-class families.

Since the weekend, however, what began as a leisurely escape has become a stress-filled travel nightmare for tens of thousands of holidaymakers, who are trapped in a sudden lockdown imposed by authorities to curb a spiraling Covid outbreak.

Driven by a highly infectious Omicron subvariant -- which authorities blame on contact with overseas seafood dealers at a fishing port -- the outbreak has infected more than 1,200 people in Sanya since August 1. It has also spread to a dozen other cities and counties in Hainan, infecting more than 200 others.

That is a major outbreak by the standards of China's zero-Covid policy, which aims to swiftly snuff out local flareups with snap lockdowns, mass testing, extensive contact tracing and quarantine.

On Saturday, the Sanya government hastily locked down the city of a million people, including some 80,000 tourists. Visitors wishing to leave must show five negative Covid tests taken over seven days, and authorities did not specify when the measures would be lifted.

Public transportation was suspended, people's movements inside the city were restricted to emergency services, and transport links were halted.

More than 80% of flights leaving Sanya were canceled on Saturday, according to data from flight tracking company Variflight. All trains departing from the city were also canceled, state broadcaster CCTV said Saturday.

The mass, sudden flight cancellations led to scenes of chaos at the airport on Saturday, when some passengers who had already boarded were ordered to deplane, according to state media reports.

A video widely circulated on Chinese social media shows a local official trying in vain to placate dozens of frustrated travelers outside the airport police station.

Speaking into a megaphone, the official promised the government would provide free food and hotel accommodation to travelers stranded at the airport, as a ring of police officers stood around him and pushed back the crowd.

"I want to go home! Go home! Go home!" the crowd chanted in response.

A medical worker conducts Covid testing for a child on August 7 in Sanya.

 

Forced stays

China's borders have been closed to international tourists since the start of the pandemic, meaning tourist hotspots like Sanya rely even more on domestic travelers.

The Sanya government said Saturday that tourists with canceled flights could book discounted hotel rooms. But for some families, the forced week-long stay may still come at a heavy price -- especially as the Chinese economy has been battered by zero-Covid.

On Sunday, state-run news website The Paper reported that a family of 13 from the southwestern city of Chengdu would need to spend about $26,600 for an extra week at their five-star hotel, including charges of more than $100 per person for lunch and dinner buffets.

The report caused a stir on Chinese social media, with a related hashtag attracting 270 million views on China's microblogging site Weibo as of Monday afternoon. Many comments expressed sympathy toward the family, while others questioned why they didn't move into a cheaper hotel. After the outcry, the family said they were able to access cheaper food options at the hotel.

Other social media posts by trapped tourists in Sanya accused some hotels of raising their prices to cash in on the forced stays. At a news conference Sunday, the Sanya government vowed to look into the complaints.

It said more than 3,200 tourists stuck at the airport on Saturday would be given seven days of accommodation and food. And about 5,000 workers had been sent to Hainan from other parts of the country to help with a mass Covid testing drive, officials added.

When will it end?

For many stranded tourists, the biggest concern is whether they will be allowed to leave after seven days. They fear the lockdown could be extended if the number of infections rises despite the restrictions.

Schools in China are due to reopen after the summer break in three weeks, and some companies may not allow employees to work remotely for weeks on end.

On Monday, Sanya airport canceled all of its 418 flights, according to flight-tracking site Variflight.

Among the tourists stuck were Shanghai residents who had gone to Hainan for summer holidays after enduring a grueling two-month lockdown in the Chinese financial hub earlier this year.

A foreign resident of Shanghai who arrived in Sanya on July 26 said he had to leave his hotel last Thursday because it was requisitioned by the local government as a quarantine facility. The hotel only gave him a day's notice and left him to figure out alternative accommodation, he said.

Over the past five days, he has waited in long lines for six Covid tests, he said.

"This situation going forward is unsustainable," said the tourist, who requested not to be named over fears of a nationalistic blowback. "It's a little bit like Russian roulette on where you go, and whether or not that area is gonna get locked down."

For many travelers mindful of the country's Covid restrictions, Hainan had been considered a safe place because in the past it has reported very few cases.

Other tourist hotspots have recently been struck by abrupt lockdown too. Last month, more than 2,000 tourists were trapped in the resort town of Beihai in southern China, after a lockdown was imposed over 500 infections.

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'Stop asking why': Shanghai intensifies Covid lockdown despite falling cases

 

Shanghai is further tightening its stringent lockdown measures after China's top leader Xi Jinping pledged to "unswervingly" double down on the country's controversial zero-Covid policy, leaving millions confined to their homes with no end in sight.

Over the weekend, videos showing Shanghai residents arguing or scuffling with hazmat suit-clad workers and police officers while being forcefully taken away for government quarantine circulated widely on Chinese social media. Many have since been removed by censors after sparking public anger.

The outcry comes as authorities appear to have walked back efforts to ease restrictions in parts of the city, despite a drop in new infections, as local officials come under pressure to curb community transmission of the virus.

Under the new hardline policies, even residents with negative Covid tests can find themselves placed into centralized government quarantine. According to social media posts and local government notices circulating online, in several parts of the city, entire apartment blocks have been deemed a health risk, with all occupants forced from their homes and placed into quarantine on the back of one positive case.

One viral video shows residents arguing with police officers who showed up at their doors in hazmat suits to take them to quarantine after someone else on their floor tested positive.

"From now on, people who live on the same floor (as Covid cases) must be transported (into quarantine)," a police officer says in the video.

"It's not that you can do whatever you want -- unless you're in America. This is China," another police officer says sternly, waving a bottle of disinfectant in his hand. "Stop asking me why. There is no why. We have to obey our country's regulations and epidemic control policies."

CNN cannot independently confirm any such policy has been issued and has reached out to the Shanghai municipal government for clarification. CNN has not been able to identify the people who took the video and does not know if they were later taken to quarantine.

According to notices online, some neighborhoods have imposed so called "silent periods" lasting for two or three days, during which residents are not permitted to leave their homes. These residents have also been temporarily banned from ordering groceries and daily essentials online, leading to renewed fears of food shortages.

Public outrage were further inflamed after accounts emerged on social media that some residents had been forced to hand over their house keys so that health workers could disinfect their homes while they were away in quarantine.

Several videos circulating online showed workers in hazmat suits spraying clouds of disinfectant over furniture and appliances inside apartments, from couches, televisions, bookshelves, beds to wardrobes.

On China's internet, some questioned the scientific basis of the measure -- experts have transmission of the virus via contaminated surfaces is exceptionally low -- while others lamented the disregard for private property rights.

"The apartments are our private property, which we bought with millions or tens of millions of yuan. Why should we allow you in? This is no different than robbery!" a Shanghai resident said on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

The escalation follows the personal intervention of Xi, who on Thursday issued what many interpreted as a threat to opponents of the zero-Covid policy, making clear he would not tolerate "acts that distort, doubt or deny our country's epidemic prevention policies."

Xi also demanded officials demonstrate a "profound, complete and comprehensive understanding" of the policy and warned them against "inadequate awareness, inadequate preparation and insufficient work" in implementing it.

Hours after Xi's speech, the Shanghai municipal Communist Party committee met on Thursday evening to study his instructions. And at a press conference Sunday, the Shanghai municipal health commission said the city was at a "critical moment" for controlling the outbreak.

"It's like sailing against the current in a boat; we must forge ahead or be pushed downstream. We must not relax or slack off," said Zhao Dandan, a deputy director of the commission.

Zhao also vowed to "resolutely implement the requirement to 'take in everyone who should be taken in' and 'quarantine everyone who should be quarantined' to stop community spread of the epidemic as soon as possible."

The tightened quarantine requirements have led to despair among many residents in the financial hub, millions of whom have been subject to more than six weeks of harsh lockdown.

Tong Zhiwei, a law professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, denounced such measures as unconstitutional in a widely shared essay on social media.

"Any action that forcefully sends residents into centralized quarantine is illegal and should stop immediately," Tong wrote.

"State of emergency is a legal status, and it can only exist after a rightful organization declares it according to the constitution; it absolutely cannot be randomly decided or recklessly declared by just any institution or official," Tong wrote.

Around the same time, Liu Dali, a Shanghai-based financial lawyer at a leading Chinese law firm, wrote a public letter demanding Shanghai's municipal People's Congress -- the city's rubber-stamp legislature -- come up with measures to protect citizen's rights against epidemic measures such as forced quarantine.

Screenshots of both letters have been scrubbed from the Chinese internet after drawing wide attention. On Weibo, Tong's verified account has been banned from posting since Monday. A hashtag of his name has also been censored.

In thinly veiled sarcasm, some internet users shared a 2015 article from the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, quoting Xi months after he took the helm of the Party in 2012: "No organization or individual has the privilege to be above the constitution and the law. Any act that violates the constitution and the law must be investigated and accounted for."

As the post started making the rounds, users were soon greeted with a glaring message saying "the content has been removed by the author."

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