The Chinese government's "zero COVID" strategy has enlisted the help of robotic dogs to enforce the policy.
China has now deployed robotic dogs to enforce coronavirus restrictions as part of the Chinese government's "zero COVID" policy. In Shanghai City, a robot dog was caught on video roaming the streets, warning the community under lockdown to remain in their houses to comply with COVID "safety" measures.
According to The Gateway Pundit, the robot dog was armed with a speaker that blasted a message saying, "Wear a mask, wash hands frequently, check temperature," as it patrolled the residential neighborhood. On Monday, China announced it would implement the largest city-wide lockdown since the COVID pandemic began in late 2019. This is in response to the continued spread of the virus' Omicron variant.
A robot dog patrols the empty streets of Shanghai in China with a loudspeaker as a reminder of sanitary measures??The authorities have introduced containment of the country's economic capital after identifying several thousand cases in recent days pic.twitter.com/v2gun6SsIG
"” Sophia Dahl (@sophiadahl1) March 31, 2022
The New York Post reported that the most extensive lockdown has begun in China's financial capital of Shanghai, where up to 26 million people live. The city previously managed its smaller outbreaks in the past through limited lockdowns. This time, however, the Chinese government is implementing a citywide lockdown in two phases.
Shanghai's Pudong financial district and nearby areas had been locked down from Monday to Friday as mass testing was launched. As for phase two, the downtown area west of the Huangpu River will begin its own five-day lockdown on Friday.
China's "zero COVID" policy now mandates residents to stay home while deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure no contact with the outside world. Non-essential businesses and offices will be closed, while public transport will be suspended. On Sunday, people had been panic buying resulting in empty supermarket shelves. In-person observations of the Tomb Sweeping Festival to be held on April 5 have already been canceled, while memorials moved online.
China has reported over 56,000 new COVID cases in March, with a surge observed in Jilin accounting for most new cases. Jilin has enforced travel bansa nd partial lockdowns in multiple cities including Changchun, a Chinese automotive manufacturing hub. The province has also built prefabricated temporary wards to house COVID patients. Near Shanghai, the city of Suzhou, Changsha, and Shenyang have also erected such structures that could house up to 6,000 people.
According to Al Jazeera, the National Health Commission of China last week announced new guidelines on limiting the geographic scope of mass testing and tasking local governments to complete testing of each designated area within 24 hours. The announcement came after China's President Xi Jinping said in early March that they must achieve "maximum prevention and control" while limiting the impact of COVID to the economy.
"Basically, this means residents won't have to be stuck in their neighborhoods or apartments for as long as before," Trivium analyst Taylor Loeb explained. "Testing should be both faster and more targeted and, ideally, cause less disruption to people's lives and business activities."
Loeb added, "This is an adjustment rather than a softening of Zero COVID. It shows that Beijing is trying to make testing less of a social and economic burden by making it more efficient, as opposed to limiting it."
In addition, China's National Bureau of Statistics said in March that the impacts of COVID will now be felt more at a local level than a national one, CNBC reported.
