Over the past week, long lines have formed outside fever clinics, calls have inundated China’s emergency hotline, and businesses are preparing for new interruptions as more and more employees become sick.
These chaotic scenes unleashed by the Chinese regime’s abrupt reversal of its nearly 3-year-old zero-COVID policy came as the virus raced through the population of 1.4 billion people, raising concerns that the authorities’ were ill-prepared for the hasty reopening.
Starting from midnight on Dec. 12, Chinese authorities dropped the state-mandated app on mobile phones used to track people’s travel histories. The national app was for the authorities to identify whether residents have visited COVID risky areas during the past 14 days, though critics fear that it could be used for mass surveillance and clamping down on dissidents….