(John Ransom, Headline USA) As China remains under siege from the coronavirus pandemic, viral video has emerged in which workers discovered, to their horror, that a man put in a body bag and transported to the morgue was still alive.
Shanghai, once considered the crown jewel of China, is beginning to lose some of its shine, with COVID lockdowns exposing the weaknesses of the Chinese Communist Party’s centrally managed response to the crisis, which always requires someone at the top of the pyramid to first make a decision to do something.
“Shanghai is really pushing us to the corner,” one user wrote on Weibo, China’s highly censored Twitter-like platform, according to CNN. “They don’t treat us like humans at all.”
The comment was punctuated by the revelations in the video that showed workers beginning to unload a body from a van when they discovered that it was moving.
“The nursing home is such a mess,” the person filming the video can be heard saying as the mortuary workers make their discovery, according to Canada’s CTVNews.
“They sent a living person on a hearse and said they were dead,” the narrator continues. “The undertaker staff said they were still moving … It is irresponsible, really irresponsible.”
CTVNews followed the clip with several comments from Chinese social-media users.
“The problems in Shanghai are fully exposed this time,” read one popular comment on Weibo.
“This counts as intentional homicide,” wrote another user.
“The government doesn’t care … what is going on in Shanghai?” another comment read.
The comments highlight the problem that the Chinese communist government has in keeping their legitimacy after several years of struggle against COVID.
The CCP has always relied upon the argument that while Chinese do not have the traditional freedoms that the Western societies enjoy, the party keeps them safe from crime and other misfortunes that Chinese often associate with Western life.
“Now, as a growing number of residents look to leave, that sense of relative safety—and [Shanghai’s and Hong Kong’s] standing as international capitals of travel and commerce—seems further away than ever,” said CNN.
