Chongqing Woman Suffers Miscarriage Allegedly Due to Zero-COVID Lockdowns

An empty road is seen in Chengdu in Sichuan Province, China, as the provincial capital city suffers under COVID-19 lockdown on Sept. 2, 2022. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

A woman in China’s southwestern municipality of Chongqing reportedly suffered a miscarriage due to stringent lockdown measures that delayed medical treatment.

The incident occurred one day after the Chinese regime released 20 new guidelines to “optimize the prevention and control measures” of COVID-19, deemed as “relaxed COVID policies” by the outside world.

The woman is only identified as Lei, a resident of Jiulongpo District of Chongqing, in a report by China’s state-owned propaganda mouthpiece China News. She was reportedly 10 weeks pregnant and was feeling unwell on the morning of Nov. 12.

Lei is shown in a video clip posted on YouTube, crying and telling those present that she called the property management as early as 7 a.m. on Nov. 12 but wasn’t taken to the hospital until 11 a.m.

“I called 110 [police emergency number in China], I called 120 [emergency number for an ambulance], I called the neighborhood community committee, and I called the property managers,” Lei said as she wept. “How could I have possibly kept my baby after [bleeding] for four hours?”

Lei wrote in a WeChat group comprising residents in her building that she was a pregnant woman and that she was bleeding.

She asked the property managers in the same WeChat group: “I called [property management] after 7 and was told that they would take me [to the hospital] for a check. May I ask when you will take me for the check?”

She added that the Jiulongpo Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine contacted her as well, asking her when she could go to the hospital.

Lei arrived at the hospital after 11:30 a.m., only to find that she had lost her baby.

Lei, a pregnant woman in Chongqing (left in the left photo and middle in the right photo), suffered a miscarriage on Nov. 12, 2022. She blames the draconian lockdown measures of being the cause of her miscarriage. Screenshot via the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times

The woman’s posts triggered much outcry among netizens, and the local district government announced on its official WeChat account that it would investigate the incident.

China News reported that, on the basis of preliminary results of investigations, the neighborhood community committee “followed the procedures” when they handled residents’ going out for medical treatment.

According to the investigation of the local authorities, the communication between the patient and the property management staff was “not timely” and “inadequate,” and the vehicles to transport patients were not provided in a timely manner. These inadequate behaviors contributed to the delay, the state-run media reported.

The local government said that they had apologized to the victim, instructed relevant parties to give the victim “appropriate compensation,” and that they were “understood” by the victim.

The investigating committee also dismissed online claims that the property management company prevented ambulances from entering the complex.

Lei is not the only victim who suffered from the CCP’s draconian lockdowns that delayed medical treatment.

In January, a pregnant woman in China’s northwestern Xi’an city lost her baby when the hospital rejected her because her PCR test had just expired four hours earlier.

In August, a 17-month-old boy died in Yining city, China’s western Xinjiang, whose father accused the authorities of the lockdown that delayed the treatment of the boy.

In October, a 6-month-old baby died in Korla city, Xinjiang, whose parents blame the lockdown that delayed treatment of the baby.

Residents Blamed Local Authorities for Lockdowns

A resident in the residential compound where Lei lives confirmed that he witnessed what happened.

The resident, who wanted to stay anonymous, told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Nov. 13 that the property management staffers prohibited Lei from leaving the compound.

“That’s why she was taken to the hospital four hours later and she wasn’t able to keep her baby,” the resident said.

Mr. Li (pseudonym), a resident of Chongqing, told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that the major districts of Chongqing have been locked down, though the municipal government hasn’t announced the lockdown.

“The delivery men are worried that they may be sealed up if they go home. Once they are locked in, they won’t be able to come out again. So they just sleep outside in the wild wherever they can so that they can still work to make money,” Li said.

The communist regime’s top health body released 20 new rules on Nov. 11, ordering its governments at all levels to ease its pandemic control measures to a certain extent.

The 20 new rules include reducing isolation time, keeping high-risk and low-risk areas while removing medium-risk areas, and halting excessive zero-COVID measures imposed by local governments.

However, local governments continue implementing stringent lockdown measures, only in a more covert way, amid a recent flare-up.

As of Nov. 13, Chongqing has designated 1,023 high-risk areas and 99 low-risk areas. In addition, it has designated 596 areas as “temporary management areas,” according to an official press release by the municipal government on Nov. 14. The city reported 2,297 COVID-19 cases on Nov. 13 and 8,000 COVID-19 cases in total since November.

Lin Cenxin and Yi Ru contributed to this report.