(Bloomberg) -- Chinese internet users urged support for a Shanghai health official whose blunt denunciation of the financial hub's strict Covid-19 strategy made her a rare critic of President Xi Jinping's signature virus policy.
Over the weekend, Chinese social-media sites passed around recordings of a call between a disgruntled resident and Zhu Weiping, a director at the Shanghai Pudong New Area Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In it, Zhu lamented that city officials had not listened to her repeated pleas to let those with mild or no symptoms isolate at home.
“We are being driven crazy,” Zhu said, according to the recording. “No one is listening to professionals. Now this illness has become a political virus, with so much resources spent. It's prevention of the flu. Which country do you see preventing a flu like this?”
When the resident informed Zhu that the conversation was being taped, she said it was fine to “put my recording out there.”
Users on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform started a hashtag that translates to “Protect Zhu Weiping” amid fears she will be silenced. As of Monday, the hashtag had a readership of 2.8 million, according to Weibo statistics.
Zhu didn't reply to an email, and the Shanghai disease control body couldn't be reached. The Pudong district Health Committee issued a statement Saturday, acknowledging the recording and saying they're looking into the matter.
The recording comes as Shanghai emerged as the epicenter of China's worst virus outbreak since the early days of the pandemic, with all of its almost 25 million residents under some form of lockdown. The city is scheduled to conduct a nucleic acid test for everybody living in the city on Monday.
During the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan back in early 2020, the public became enraged after local police reprimanded opthamologist Li Wenliang for rumor-mongering after he posted early online warnings about a SARS-like illness. When Li later died of Covid-19, authorities honored his death in a bid to mitigate public outrage.
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