By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — On June 27, digital censors quickly removed the label “next five years” after the Communist Party secretary in Beijing reportedly said the capital would normalize during February 27, 2019. Remarks on epidemic prevention and control have sparked discussions online. The next five years.
Cai Qi, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, made the remarks as part of the Communist Party’s management report on Beijing.
The city’s party congress is held every five years, ahead of the national party congress scheduled for this fall. At the General Assembly, members generally reviewed their work over the past five years, while also announcing goals for the next five years.
“In the next five years, Beijing will resolutely and persistently do a good job of normalizing pandemic prevention and control,” said a cached version of the Beijing Daily, the main mouthpiece of the capital’s Communist Party.
The city “will implement high-quality routine PCR testing, focus on screening, and strictly check the entry of resident communities, units and institutions,” it said.
Today’s “Beijing Daily” no longer has the phrase “the next five years”. On Weibo, the label “next five years” was removed. A search for it on the social media platform brought up a notice that the topic could not be displayed “in accordance with relevant laws, regulations and policies,” a common error message for topics removed by the app’s reviewers.
China’s requests for mass testing have become more frequent since a surge in cases driven by the omicron variant in April. In Beijing, residents must now test negative within the past 72 hours to enter any public spaces, including restaurants and offices.
Across the city, the government has pushed to establish thousands of testing sites where a single person can be swab tested.
Throughout the pandemic, China has stuck to its “zero” or “coronavirus zero” strategy. It relies on mass testing, surveillance and strict lockdowns to stop the virus from spreading widely in the community.
