Chinese officials apologize for apartment break-ins to search for COVID cases

• The health workers broke into at least 84 apartments in a building near Hailong Street while searching for people they believed were infected or had close contact with an infected person and were hiding to avoid quarantine.
• Under China's Zero-COVID strategy, people who test positive or had a close contact must spend a number of days in centralized quarantine facilities, according to the Times.

What they're saying: The government of the city’s Liwan district said the health workers conducted "conducted emergency investigations" on the apartments to "prevent the emergence of new community transmission."

• "The above-mentioned emergency household inspection method is simple and crude, ignoring the feelings of the residents and hurting the feelings of the masses," it said.
• It claimed that all locks had been replaced and that the head of the neighborhood personally apologized to each resident.

The big picture: Similar community health workers have received criticism in other cities this year for harassing and beating residents, killing a pet dog while its owner was in quarantine and separating children from their parents.

• World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this year that he believes China's zero-COVID strategy isn't sustainable given the virus' ever-evolving nature.

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