It does not matter if you’re old or young, shrimp or fish – you can’t escape China’s zero-covid policy.

In the Jimei district of the coastal city of Xiamen, some fish and shrimp also had to do a nucleic acid test this week, leading to some banter on Chinese social media.

In the area, fishermen returning from a day of work have to undergo nucleic acid tests together with some of the fish that they caught during the day.

After the fishermen themselves have done the Covid test, they reportedly have to grab a few fresh fish from their catch of the day for the anti-epidemic workers to test. They open the mouth of the fish so that the fish can be tested with the cotton swab.

Chinese media outlet Sohu (搜狐新闻) posted a video about the issue on its Weibo account on August 17th, receiving over 90,000 likes and more than 8000 shares.

Catch of the day! It doesn't matter if you're young or old, fish or crab – can't escape China's zero-covid policy and the nucleic acid tests. pic.twitter.com/stoqsGyYf1

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) August 17, 2022

“I thought fish didn’t any lungs?” a popular comment said, with other commenters suggesting that this news made it clear that Covid “doesn’t affect the lungs but the brain instead.”

Another commenter suggested that if this matter concerned authorities, they should also start testing mosquitos.

Some also felt bad for the fish: “They still have to undergo this before getting killed.”

“The fish should be grateful for receiving a Covid test for free,” others wrote, while there were also people who wondered if parts of the sea would go into lockdown mode if some fish would test positive for Covid.

There were also critical commenters wondering about any scientific reasoning behind testing fish, asking who was getting paid to test them – suggesting commercial benefits outweigh scientific basis in this case.

“You can’t get Covid if you don’t have lungs, let alone if you live in the sea,” one Weibo user wrote, another person asking: “Have we all gone mad?”

By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes

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Last November, Chinese social media users were outraged after anti-epidemic workers in Shangrao killed a pet dog while its owner was undergoing quarantine at a nearby hotel. This week, a similar incident has again sparked outrage on Weibo.

On March 2nd, a Samoyed dog was beaten to death by anti-epidemic workers in Huizhou, Guangdong Province. Home security footage of the incident was shared by the dog’s owner (有只雪球), who wrote about it on Weibo on March 4th. Her post was shared over 100,000 times on Saturday afternoon.

The 3-year-old dog named Snowball was left at home while its owners were quarantined elsewhere in Huizhou. The female owner’s boyfriend was confirmed to have Covid-19 and was sent to a designated hospital on March 2nd, while the woman also needed to quarantine due to being a close contact.

That very same day, two epidemic prevention staff members entered the house to disinfect it. The dog owner shared screenshots of a WeChat conversation with the health workers, in which she told them in which room the dog was staying and also told them he was harmless and did not bite. The conversation suggests that the owner was under the assumption that the dog would just be tested for Covid19.

But much to the horror of the owners, their home security camera system allowed them to see how workers used a long stick to hit the dog, and how they continued to beat the dog to death. A video of the incident was also posted on Twitter by @realsexycyborg (warning, viewer discretion is advised, distressing footage and sound).

On March 5th, the official Weibo account of the Huizhou Propaganda Department released a statement on the incident, confirming that the incident had indeed occurred and apologizing for it.

Although the statement said the anti-epidemic workers used a “cruel manner” to kill the dog, it also said that this large dog had been exposed to Covid19 for a prolonged period through its owner and that there allegedly was a high chance that the dog also had caught the Covid19 virus.

The statement further said that the health workers in question have been suspended from their duties and that authorities have contacted the dog’s owners and apologized to them.

Many people on Weibo expressed anger and disbelief that such an incident had occurred again: “This epidemic has been going on for several years, why does this keep happening? First Shangrao, now Huizuo. It’s heartbreaking.”

“Snowball was so scared. I couldn’t breathe when clicking on the video, and Paipai [pet dog] immediately scurried to me with his tail down when he heard the video, dogs can empathize with other dogs, Paipai could hear that Snowball was in danger.”

Other commenters also claimed that more dogs were recently killed by health workers. Guangdong province recently saw a spike in Covid-19 cases, with virtually all cases originating from neighboring Hong Kong.

Some Weibo users pleaded for Chinese laws to prohibit the mistreatment of animals. For many years, animal welfare activists have been calling for better legal protection of animals in China. China currently has no laws preventing animal abuse but over the past few years, the voices calling for the legal protection of animals in China have become louder – in 2020, state media outlet CCTV also called for animal protection laws.

Online anger was further fuelled when hashtag pages relating to this incident were taken offline on Weibo, with the topic being left out of the top trending topics and hot search lists. The Huizhou authorities closed the comment sections underneath their statement.

“What? You’re clamping down on this topic now? Do you think we’re idiots?”, one Weibo user wrote. Another person said “It’s fine if this gets deleted. For communism, your dog is my dog, you beat my death to death, just apologize and it’s ok.”

Another person wrote: “As a Huizhou resident and a pet lover, I really feel horrible about this. Epidemic prevention is important, but it should protect life, not harm life. The loss of moral preventive measures and the indifferent attitude in which this incident was handled afterward is really a disgrace to Huizhou!”

This is ALL over Weibo-

Any Pro-China influencers avoiding it?
They're getting paid.

Any obfuscating, whatabouting or defending it?
They're getting paid.

You want to know who's getting fat envelopes of cash from🇨🇳? Ask them about this and you'll see.

JUSTICE FOR SNOWBALL! https://t.co/a5FIrcN6sC pic.twitter.com/UZu23pDlWh

— Naomi Wu 机械妖姬 (@RealSexyCyborg) March 5, 2022

By Manya Koetse

Follow @whatsonweibo

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©2022 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.