The account of a young man from Dandong claiming to be an end-stage leukemia patient has attracted the attention of Chinese netizens this week. In a Tiktok video, the man stated his only wish is to be able to go home to die, but that he is being prevented from returning to his loved ones.
The man, who said he is dying soon, was on his way home to his parents after seeing a doctor in Beijing. Authorities and caregivers had allegedly been lying to him about taking him back to Liaoning province. Instead, they had been driving around Hebei province.
In various videos which have been circulating on Chinese social media since July 1st, the man can be seen struggling to breathe, blood stains showing through his face mask.
Because the videos are short and lack context, this unverified story has raised a lot of questions and concerns – especially because the original TikTok account no longer seems to be online. Hashtags used to discuss the story (such as #丹东白血病男孩#, #辽宁丹东一白血病男孩归家受阻#) were also taken offline on Monday, July 4th.
“Let him go home! He just want to die by his parents’ side!” some commenters said, with others writing: “Where is he now? Who is helping him?” “This feels like another world, not like China in the 21st century,” another Weibo user posted.
This online account of an allegedly terminally ill patient being unable to go back to Dandong, Liaoning province, strikes a chord with netizens at a time when people in the city have gone through a lot already.
Dandong, China’s biggest city bordering North Korea with a population of 2.3 million citizens, has seen one of the strictest lockdowns in the country.
Dandong has seen successive waves of Covid-19 since April of this year. Although there has been an easing of the strict rules on June 24 – those in risk-free regions can move around within the city as long as they have a negative test result within 48 hours -, residents are still facing many hurdles related to Covid restrictions in their everyday life.
Dandong sunset shared by Weibo user @洪水清波- on June 24.
In a recent report by state media outlet Global Times, the epidemic situation was still described as “grim and complex” since the city has not been able to identify the source of transmission of local Covid cases. Because the Covid outbreak in North Korea is seen as a possible source of infection, Dandong residents living near the border have previously even been advised to close their windows.
By June 14, when Dandong had been under lockdown for 50 days already, the city’s mayor Han Jianjun apologized for failures in the city’s response to the lockdown.
There have been various trending stories about residents clashing with community leadership and local authorities recently, and some reports about people allegedly committing suicide.
On June 21, a local woman and her father clashed with police after the daughter insisted on taking her dad to the hospital to pick up medicine and get a check-up despite her yellow health code (meaning movement is restricted due to possible heightened Covid infection risk). The incident went viral, made headlines, and the woman was later given ten days of administrative detention for refusing to cooperate and abide by the epidemic prevention regulations.
On July 2nd, netizens posted about an elderly lady jumping from the 13th floor of a building in the city’s Zhenxing district (振兴区).
A few days prior, on June 30, a 93-year-old resident living in the city’s Taonan community (桃南社区) was allegedly prevented from getting medicine at the hospital for his hernia pain because he did not have the right papers. The man, wanting to show community workers his condition, was accused of being indecent (‘a hooligan’), after which the old man was taken away by the police.
Feeling wronged and humiliated, the man hanged himself by the community gate the following day. That story also went trending on social media. Although some related hashtags were taken offline (#丹东桃南社区阻止93岁老人看病#, #丹东93岁老人受辱上吊#), the incident was later also reported by Chinese media and local authorities started an investigation into the case (#丹东回应93岁老人疑受辱后自杀#).
The community where the 93-year-old Dandong resident took his own life.
On July 3rd, a delivery driver who was unable to make enough money during the Covid outbreak allegedly also committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Ai River after he was no longer able to pay his rent.
There was also controversy over a box containing the Covid test samples of 186 residents of Dandong’s Taoyuan community (桃源社区) being left by the side of the road for an entire night and day on July 1st (#丹东186人核酸样本疑被搁置路边#).
Although not all of these stories come up in official media reports, and some are unverified at time of writing, they attract a lot of attention on Chinese social media, where Dandong recurringly is a hot – and censored – topic.
“Again, it’s [happening] in Dandong. Three months of stillstand, countless of contradictions are accumulating and it’s intensifying. You’re willing to give careful consideration to some people’s lives while blatantly disregarding the lives of others,” one commenter wrote.
“We are doing daily testing here in Dandong, and we do not know why (..), is it really necessary to do it every day? Why not just twice a week?”, one Weibo user from Dandong wrote on July 5th, with another person writing: “It will be the 8th day of continuous testing tomorrow.”
On Tuesday, the city reported one new (asymptomatic) Covid case. On Sunday, there were nine new Covid cases. The city reported the highest number of new local cases on April 25-26 of this year, when 102 new asymptomatic cases were reported within a day and 24 symptomatic cases.
“I want to ask God, will something good still happen in Dandong? Will I be able to return home in August? In October? Will I be able to go home to my family at all again this year?”, one Weibo user wrote.
The daily trending topics concerning Dandong recently are a sign of built-up frustrations. Many Dandong residents are expressing discontent, worry, and stress on Weibo about the strict Covid measures of the past few months.
On July 4th, a man in Dandong’s Maokuishan, Zhenxing District, could be seen frantically throwing objects from his 6th-floor window, damaging the cars parked underneath the building.
On July 3rd, the story one netizen shared about a family being forced to isolate, leaving behind their farm animals, also shocked social media users. In a home security video shared online, anti-epidemic workers can be seen dragging dead sheep away. Instead of feeding them, the sheep were apparently electrocuted and disposed of.
One thing that many people are venting about is the lack of official responses or follow-ups to the stories that have been circulating recently: “All of these things happening in Dandong are not being followed up on, [they] just settle it by leaving it unsettled, this is the way that the Dandong government and related departments are handling things,” one commenter wrote.
Looking at lockdown mismanagement, lack of access to medical care, and the heightening tensions between local community workers and residents, there seems to be some resemblance with the hopelessness and despair people expressed during the lockdown in Xi’an in early 2022 and the handling of the Covid outbreak in Shanghai in Spring.
After so many weeks of hardship, many people are longing for good news. “I just want life to return to normal,” some netizens write, with one person adding: “Just give us some hope.”
To read more about Covid-19 in China, check our articles here.
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
For information and support on mental health and suicide, international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
Get the story behind the hashtag. Subscribe to What’s on Weibo here to receive our weekly newsletter and get access to our latest articles:
Spotted a mistake or want to add something? Please let us know in comments below or email us. First-time commenters, please be patient – we will have to manually approve your comment before it appears.
©2022 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
The post What’s Happening in Dandong? Tragic Trending Stories from the Border City appeared first on What's on Weibo.