Sprawling Xinjiang is the latest Chinese region to be hit with sweeping COVID-19 travel restrictions, as China further ratchets up control measures ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this month.
Trains and busses in and out of the region of 22 million people have been suspended, and passenger numbers on flights have been reduced to 75% capacity, reports said Thursday.
As is often the case with China’s draconian “zero-COVID” policy, the measures seemed out of proportion to the number of cases detected.
The National Health Commission announced just 93 cases in Xinjiang on Wednesday and 97 on Thursday, all of them asymptomatic. Xinjiang leaders on Tuesday conceded problems with detection and control measures but offered no word on when they planned to lift the restrictions.
Officials are desperate not to be called out for new outbreaks in their regions and Xinjiang has been under special scrutiny over the government’s establishment of a series of prison-like re-education centers in which Muslim minorities have been taught to renounce their religion and allegedly subjected to a range of human rights abuses.
Xinjiang’s vast surveillance system, relying on ubiquitous checkpoints, facial and even voice recognition software, and universal cell phone monitoring has made controlling travel among the population especially easy.
“Zero-COVID” has been closely identified with Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, who is expected to receive a third five-year term in office at the congress beginning Oct. 16. That’s despite criticisms from the World Health Organization and massive disruptions to the economy, education and normal life in China.
Last month, a nighttime bus crash that killed 27 people who were being forcefully moved to a mass quarantine location in southwestern China set off a storm of anger online over the harshness of the policy. Survivors said they had been compelled to leave their apartments even when not a single case had been discovered.
“Zero-COVID” has been celebrated by the country’s leaders as evidence of the superiority of their system over the U.S., which has had more than a million COVID-19 deaths.
Xi has cited China’s approach as a “major strategic success” and evidence of the “significant advantages” of its political system over Western liberal democracies.
Yet even as other countries open up, the humanitarian costs to China’s pandemic approach have grown.
Earlier this year in Shanghai, desperate residents complained of being unable to get medicines or even groceries during the city’s two-month lockdown, while some died in hospitals from lack of medical care as the city restricted movement. Last week, residents in the western region of Xinjiang said they went hungry during a more than 40-day lockdown.
An outspoken Christian conservative attorney from Alabama has asked a federal appeals court to revive a Louisiana pastor’s damage claims against state officials over long-expired COVID-19 restrictions.
A federal judge this year dismissed minister Tony Spell’s lawsuit against Gov. John Bel Edwards and others over enforcement of the ban. Spell drew national attention for his flouting of the restrictions early in the pandemic at his church in Central, near Baton Rouge.
One of Spell’s attorneys is Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court justice and Senate candidate. Moore insisted in arguments this week before a panel of judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the state had no authority whatsoever to restrict church gatherings.
Panel members appeared skeptical of that claim in arguments recorded as they were held Monday in Fort Worth, Texas. But they raised the question of whether Spell’s church was unfairly restricted, compared with other public gathering places, such as shopping mall food courts.
“They have treated us differently,” Moore said. “But the basis of our argument is there is no jurisdiction to limit a church attendance.”
Spell has had legal victories in his fight with the state. Louisiana’s Supreme Court, in May, threw out state charges against him, ruling 5-2 that Edwards’ restrictions in place at the time violated Spell’s freedom of religion.
But his lawsuit that includes claims for damages over the gathering restrictions was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge. Jackson ruled in January that the lawsuit was moot because the restrictions expired long ago.
And Jackson rejected Spell’s request for damages from state and local officials, ruling that “there is not now, and never has been, a ‘clearly established’ right to unrestricted religious assembly, and at all relevant times Defendants reasonably believed that they were acting within the constitutional limits set by the Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit.”
The appellate judges on Monday closely questioned Josh Force, an attorney arguing for the Edwards administration, on whether church assemblies were treated unfairly when compared with other public gatherings, including crowds at shopping malls and Black Lives Matter protests.
“Isn’t the food court at the mall at least as dangerous as the worship center?” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod asked.
Force argued that Edwards was acting under the best advice of public health officials at the time as to what types of gatherings were safe.
Hearing the case were Elrod and 5th Circuit Chief Judge Priscilla Richman, both nominated to the circuit by President George W. Bush; and Judge Andrew Oldham, nominated by President Donald Trump.
News 6 and Centra Care are partnering once again to offer free flu shots to the Central Florida community.
There will be three events in October for those who would like to receive a flu shot.
Centra Care will host the events at these locations:
Colonial Town Centra Care — Monday, Oct. 10, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.New Horizon West Centra Care — Wednesday, Oct. 12, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.New Ocoee Centra Care — Thursday, Oct. 13, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Ringo Starr has cancelled shows in North America after the former Beatles drummer tested positive for COVID-19.
The 82-year-old cancelled performances Sunday at the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo, Michigan, and Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, Minnesota, citing illness.
On Monday a spokesperson confirmed that Starr and his All-Starr band would be cancelling five more shows after the former Beatle caught coronavirus.
The five Canadian shows cancelled included Winnipeg, Manitoba; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Lethbridge in Alberta; as well as arenas in Abbotsford and Penticton in British Columbia.
The rest of his tour will remain on hold while Starr recovers.
“Ringo hopes to resume as soon as possible and is recovering at home,” a statement said. “As always, he and the All Starrs send peace and love to their fans, and hope to see them back out on the road soon.”
Germany’s health minister warned Friday that the country is seeing a steady rise in COVID-19 cases as it goes into the fall, and urged older people to get a second booster shot tweaked to protect against new variants.
Other European countries such as France, Denmark and the Netherlands are also recording an increase in cases, Karl Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin.
“We are clearly at the start of a winter wave,” he said.
German officials recorded 96,367 new cases in the past 24 hours, about twice as many as a week ago.
Starting Saturday, Germany’s 16 states can again impose pandemic restrictions such as a requirement to wear masks indoors.
It’s not every day you drive through a hurricane to give birth, but that’s what this Melbourne mom had to do Wednesday morning as Ian barreled across the Florida peninsula.
Hanna-Kay Williams, her fiancé and her mother braved fierce winds and rain on Brevard County roads after she started having contractions Tuesday, a day before Ian made landfall in the state.
