Poor boy lived and died during Covid. RIP

BEIJING: Chinese local authorities apologised Thursday (Nov 3) after a three-year-old boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning when medical care was delayed because of a COVID-19 lockdown, in a rare admission of responsibility.

The northwestern city of Lanzhou has been locked down for nearly a month under China's harsh zero-COVID policy, which has seen millions of people across the country confined to their homes and often complaining of poor conditions, food shortages and slow emergency responses.

Local police had earlier confirmed the death of a child in a Tuesday statement but did not mention delays in accessing medical treatment.

The same day footage of people desperately administering the child CPR on a flatbed tricycle spread rapidly, along with videos of small neighbourhood protests that evening.

"INDIRECTLY KILLED"

The boy's father, Tuo Shilei, wrote on social media Wednesday that he had been denied permission to leave his housing compound by workers stationed at a checkpoint, and that an ambulance did not arrive in time.

"I personally think that he was indirectly killed," Tuo told Reuters by phone.

At around midday on Tuesday, after his wife slipped and fell after being affected by gas fumes while cooking, Tuo noticed that his son, Wenxuan, was also unwell. Tuo said he tried desperately to call for an ambulance or police, but could not get through.

After about 30 minutes Wenxuan's condition worsened, and Tuo said he performed CPR, which helped briefly. He rushed with his son to the entrance of their community compound, under strict lockdown, but staff at the gate would not let him past, telling him to call neighbourhood authorities or an ambulance.

Frantic and unwilling to wait any longer for an ambulance, Tuo crashed through the barriers with his son and some "kind-hearted" locals called a taxi to take them to a hospital, where doctors' efforts to save Wenxuan were unsuccessful.

"There was the COVID situation at the checkpoint. The staff did not act, and then ignored and avoided the problem, and then we were blocked by another checkpoint," said Tuo, who is 32 and owns a small meat shop.

"No help was provided. This series of events caused the death of my child."

The Lanzhou government and department of health and the Gansu provincial government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters was not immediately able to reach the hospital where the boy died.

On Thursday district health authorities published a detailed account of the incident on social media and expressed their "sincere condolences" to the boy's relatives.

"We sincerely accept criticism and supervision from the media and netizens, and are determined to rectify (mistakes)," they wrote.

The Lanzhou authorities admitted it took more than 90 minutes to dispatch an ambulance after the boy's father rang an emergency hotline multiple times, and they confirmed lengthy interactions with staff took place at the compound gate.

"This incident exposed blockages in the emergency rescue mechanism, weakness in emergency response capabilities, and the inflexibility of cadres' work," their statement said.

SOCIAL MEDIA OUTRAGE

Authorities said Tuo had eventually managed to flag a taxi with help from a policeman at another checkpoint.

However, Tuo said he had been forced to break through a checkpoint barrier and that it was a passer-by who helped him flag the ride.

He also claimed he was asked to present a PCR test result by community staff, despite the entire housing compound having been under lockdown and not tested for the previous 10 days.

The tragedy triggered a storm of online criticism of China's zero-COVID policy, with one related hashtag censored on Weibo after gaining hundreds of millions of views.

"Three years of the COVID pandemic have been his entire life," read one widely circulated comment.

"Even though I didn't experience it, I feel like I can't breathe," wrote another user.

Tuo said he was later contacted by a person who said they were a retired local official and offered to arrange for Tuo to be sent 100,000 yuan (US$13,743) if he signed a pledge agreeing not to go public or seek redress over the incident.

Tuo said he rejected the offer, instead demanding an explanation for his son's death.

On Wednesday morning, a funeral for Wenxuan was held in the family's nearby hometown of Hezheng. Tuo did not attend, for fear of being quarantined on arrival.

Numerous cases of people dying because they were unable to get medical care due to COVID-19 restrictions have drawn viral outrage this year, including during Shanghai's two-month lockdown.

In January, a senior Chinese official warned hospitals not to turn away patients after a woman's miscarriage during a lockdown in Xi'an sparked fury. She was refused hospital entry for not having a PCR test result.

Late last month, censors scrubbed posts saying a 14-year-old girl had died in the central city of Ruzhou after falling ill in a quarantine facility and being denied prompt medical care.