China: anger after 4-month-old baby dies in Covid-19 quarantine

Chinese authorities faced more public anger on Thursday after a second child's death was blamed on overzealous anti-virus enforcement, adding to frustration at controls that are confining millions of people to their homes and sparked fights with health workers.

The 4-month-old girl died after suffering vomiting and diarrhea while in quarantine at a hotel in the central city of Zhengzhou, according to news reports and social media posts.

They said it took her father 11 hours to get help after emergency services balked at dealing with them and she finally was sent to a hospital 100 kilometres (60 miles) away.

The death came after the ruling Communist Party promised this month that people in quarantine wouldn't be blocked from getting emergency help following an outcry over a 3-year-old boy's death from carbon monoxide in the northwest.

His father blamed health workers in the city of Lanzhou, who he said tried to stop him from taking his son to a hospital.

Internet users expressed anger at the ruling Communist Party's “zero-COVID” strategy and demanded that officials in Zhengzhou be punished for failing to help the public.

“Once again, someone died because of excessive epidemic prevention measures,” one user wrote on the popular Sina Weibo platform. “They put their official post above everything else.” The ruling party promised last week to ease quarantine and other restrictions under its “zero-COVID” strategy, which aims to isolate every infected person.

But Chinese leaders are trying to dispel hopes the measures are about to end as other governments ease controls and try to live with the virus.

“Zero-COVID” has kept China's infection numbers lower than those of the United States and other major countries but shuts down neighbourhoods, schools and businesses for weeks at a time. Residents of some areas complain they are left without food and medicine.

A spike in infections over the past two weeks has led officials in areas across China to confine families to their cramped apartments or order people into quarantine if a single case is found in their workplace or neighbourhood.