‘No one remembers us’: China’s pandemic workers reel from sudden end of zero-Covid
For about a month last year, Liu, a 31-year-old migrant labourer, donned a white hazmat suit and enforced localised lockdowns in Beijing, an unpopular job that put him on the front line of China’s fight against coronavirus.
Once praised by President Xi Jinping for having “braved hardships and courageously persevered” in the face of the pandemic, workers such as Liu were left jobless, disillusioned, and angry by the abrupt end of China’s zero-Covid policy last month.
“The opening was very sudden,” said Liu, who now works as a delivery courier in the capital. “We all found out through the media.”
“Pre-Covid, a quarter of all jobs in China were in accommodation, catering, retail and tourism,” he said. “The recovery here will relieve a lot of labour market pressure.”
Many volunteers and medical workers have been able to more easily transition into other jobs. “Other people working at our booths were simply reabsorbed into hospital jobs,” said a nurse working at a testing booth at Beijing Children’s Hospital.
But even those with medical training were affected by the sudden end of the zero-Covid.
Yajie, a 21-year-old medical student who spent two months working for the local health commission of Lu’an, a city of 4mn in Anhui province, received a subsidy of Rmb100 per day as well as room and board. But she said working as a dabai had set back her medical career.
“Because of [our work] fighting the epidemic, my classmates and I missed our opportunity to do internships”, she said. After the restrictions ended, she added, “none of us ever received a formal volunteer certificate or recognition. No one remembers us.”
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Eleanor Olcott
