![]() During the lockdown, they became the coordinators of anti-COVID-19 activities in gated communities.Ī temporary workforce was recruited from CCP members, civil servants, the army, NGO social workers and volunteers. Property management companies are usually responsible for the maintenance of buildings, facilities and public spaces. These are usually retired people or local CCP members who volunteer to represent community members and carry out responsibilities for resident committees. Paid and unpaid building and unit masters were the key link between the residents and the outside world. Each person answered around 200–300 phone call requests every day while doing their own work. Those on the committees continued to work during the lockdown and were in charge of responding to residents’ requests. Committees have five to nine staff members and are in charge of 100 to 700 households.įor example, the Baibuting community in Wuhan has nine resident committees. These workers correspond to a section of their community, each of which collaborates with a resident committee. For example, there are 12,000 grid workers in Wuhan. This included government staff working for multiple layers of the bureaucracy. Enforcing these measures required a large work force that came from several sources. This is by no means a complete list of the actions taken at the community level to implement the central government’s approach to combating the pandemic. When leaving home was not allowed, food was delivered to homes or to a designated area in a community for collection. Much importance was placed on ensuring the supply of food to housebound residents. In cities with functioning community-based healthcare facilities, the prescriptions for over-the-counter drugs were extended, and drugs were sent to community-based GPs for collection or home delivery. There was also a focus on minimising hospital visits. People with light symptoms were sent to designated quarantine facilities such as hospitals or designated hotels, while those with severe symptoms were transferred to ICUs. The Chinese government enforced the close monitoring of suspected cases so they could be quarantined or treated. This was complemented by digitally enabled detection and prevention. Systematic monitoring of the health status of the population was also carried out through temperature checks at home and at all entrances to public buildings and gated communities. In more tech-savvy cities - such as those in Zhejiang Province - digital gadgets were introduced to carry out monitoring and surveillance with minimal human contact. Mobile phone apps were introduced to automatically check whether a person had used up their travel quota, while ID readers were installed to verify this at building entrances. ![]() Residents could only come in or out with valid IDs and while wearing masks. Most entrances to communities were shut down, leaving only one entrance open. ![]() Many of the lockdown tasks were the responsibility of individual communities, including enforcing social distancing and the travel ban. An equally severe lockdown in spread out communities would have been considerably more difficult to implement. Chinese cities have many communities with gated high-rises that can be readily closed. The structure of Chinese cities facilitated the strict lockdown. The anticipated travel of around three billion Chinese citizens and frequent social gatherings during the Lunar New Year drove the decision. The key considerations behind the lockdown were policymakers’ estimates of the risks posed by the virus and how difficult it would be to maintain social distancing. In severely infected areas, people were completely housebound. In most cities, each household was allowed to send one person to do the shopping every two or three days. The severity of China’s lockdown varied from one area to the next. The fight against the pandemic is not only a challenge for health professionals, but also a stress test for broader society. But regardless of whether lockdowns should happen, communities need to be well prepared when they do. There are debates over whether China should have taken such strict measures. Not only were municipalities closed, but also communities, housing estates, and sometimes individual buildings. China’s approach was a ‘draconian’ lockdown. Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacificįighting against the spread of COVID-19 requires people to maintain social distancing and isolate from sources of infection, as advised by the World Health Organization.
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