As more cases of COVID-19 were discovered in Beijing and parts of northeastern China, prompting lockdowns, some Chinese college students in the city of Dalian complained that they could not leave campus.
Previously, authorities said a man surnamed Fu contracted COVID-19 while he was in Beijing and tested positive upon arriving in Ningbo city and quarantining on Dec. 23.
Dalian, a port city located in Liaoning Province, witnessed a surge of infection cases in recent days. On Dec. 21, municipal authorities announced that local health institutes should be placed under a “warlike state” to stem the spread of COVID-19, after the city continuously discovered new locally-transmitted cases since Dec. 15.
And on Dec. 22, Dalian authorities launched city-wide testing for all residents.
Dalian health officials also enacted strict measures for college students. According to a letter sent by the local Dalian Maritime University to all students and teachers on Saturday, all college students in Dalian were forbidden to leave the city until the local outbreak came to an end, and all local colleges were asked to do “seal-off management.” The letter was posted on the school’s Weixin social media account.
On Sunday, the Dalian Maritime University published another letter on Weixin addressed to students’ parents, explaining that because the local outbreak remained “severe,” preventing students from leaving the school was necessary to reduce people’s movements.
Other local colleges also gave similar orders to their students, including Dalian University of Foreign Languages, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, and the Dalian University of Technology.
A student at the Dalian Maritime University who declined to give his name told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that he canceled his flight home because students were not allowed to leave the school.
He said he didn’t think school officials would listen to students’ concerns about the new quarantine policy, but expressed hope that the local outbreak would soon be over so that they could go home to enjoy the New Year holiday with their family.
A student named Li Ling (pseudonym) at the Dalian University of Technology told this publication that in handling the COVID-19 outbreak, school officials had not kept their promises to students.
For instance, Li said students lined up at school to get tested for the disease at noon on Dec. 26 because they were told that students could go home on Dec. 28 if their test results returned negative. However, hours later, at around 2 p.m. local time, the test was called off by local government officials.
Li said that she didn’t know when they would be able to go home, and expressed concerns that students would have to pay for the canceled bus or flight tickets that they initially booked to return home.
There was unease among the student body. According to Li, there were shouts of “I want to go home” from windows of the school dormitory at 11 p.m. local time on Dec. 24.
Li questioned why schools decided to keep students on campus, since they could easily report their whereabouts if they do leave.
“I believe if the Dalian government continues to insist on not allowing students to leave, students could become restless. They could even join together to resist,” Li said.
China’s capital Beijing also saw a burgeoning outbreak.
On Dec. 26, Shunyi district in Beijing was placed under “warlike mode” after authorities confirmed two new locally-transmitted cases, according to Chinese state-run media. The cases prompted authorities to mandate testing for 800,000 locals in the district. As of midnight on Saturday, Chinese state-run media Xinhua reported that about 120,000 people were tested.
New cases were also confirmed on Sunday.
Meanwhile, workers at the Aobei Science Park in Beijing’s Haidian district, where Fu worked, discovered on Wednesday that they could not leave their workplace.
On Chinese social media Weibo, people complained that all workers were asked to take nucleic acid tests for COVID-19, and could be quarantined inside for a long time.