After a bus accident killed at least 27 people being transferred to a Covid quarantine facility on Sunday, the Chinese public staged a widespread online protest against the government’s harsh pandemic policy.
It was a moment of collective grief and anger, with a heavy dose of shame, guilt and despair. After nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, people asked how they could give the government the power to deprive them of their dignity, livelihood, mental health and even life; how they could fail to protect their loved ones from the “zero Covid” autocracy; and how long the craziness would last.