The backstory here is that China’s zero-COVID policy is still in effect in most of the country including in Guangzhou where the government announced new lockdowns impacting millions of people about a week ago:

A surge in COVID-19 cases has spurred lockdowns in the southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, adding to financial pressure that has disrupted global supply chains and sharply slowed growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Residents in districts encompassing almost 5 million people have been ordered to stay home at least through Sunday, with one member of each family allowed out once per day to purchase necessities, local authorities said Wednesday.

But as of yesterday there were violent protests in the city.

Residents under Covid lockdown in China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou have torn down barriers meant to confine them to their homes, taking to the streets in defiance of strictly enforced local orders, according to video and images circulating on social media.

Some of the images show large crowds cheering and surging across toppled barriers and filling streets after dark in the city’s Haizhu district, which has been under an increasingly restrictive lockdown since November 5, as the epicenter of the city’s ongoing Covid outbreak…

The public protest – an exceedingly rare event in China, where authorities keep tight control over dissent – appears as yet another sign of the mounting public anger and desperation over the government’s stringent zero-Covid policies…

In a video circulating on social media, a man can be heard screaming “Us Hubei people want to eat! Us Hubei people want to be unsealed!” referring to another province in China, where many migrant workers in the district come from. He is part of a crowd that’s gathered facing a Covid workers in hazmat suits.

In a separate clip of the same scene, another man asks the workers: “If your parents have gone sick, how would you feel? If your children are suffering from fever and prevented from leaving (for the hospital), how would you feel?”

We’ve seen some of this in China before but not very often. Protests like this represent a big risk. But clearly these people are fed up with the zero-COVID restrictions.

BREAKING: Residents destroy a testing center in Guangzhou in southern China. The severe restrictions of the zero-covid policy seem to be failing and the people are revolting 🚨 🚨 🚨

🔊sound …🔥🧐 pic.twitter.com/fA9Oy2QrGh

— Jim Lewis 💰⚒💰 (@Galactic_Trader) November 15, 2022

There’s more:

WATCH: Scenes of unrest emerged in China’s Guangzhou as residents knocked over quarantine barriers and flooded the streets after a Covid lockdown was extended.

This was a rare show of protest against China's zero-Covid policy, which has been in force for nearly three years. pic.twitter.com/5478ZVEidi

— DW News (@dwnews) November 15, 2022

Guangzhou City — Residents tearing down the lockdown barrier and chanting:
”Lift lockdown! Lift lockdown!…”

November 9th, 2022 3am pic.twitter.com/oNxxFRpWoV

— Songpinganq (@songpinganq) November 8, 2022

But this being China it wasn’t long before the “troublemakers” were face down in the street with someone standing on their neck (top clip). Here’s what it looked like the next morning (bottom clip).

After riot mess in China's Guangzhou city — Rice are everywhere and a police car was overturned & lockdown barricades were teared down.

November 15th, 2022. pic.twitter.com/sXORaZsu3E

— Songpinganq (@songpinganq) November 15, 2022

People are fed up with the lockdowns but they are taking their lives in their hands when they protest or get angry. Meanwhile, China is seeing an increase in the number of COVID cases but a large percentage of those are non-symptomatic.

On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission reported more than 17,772 new Covid cases across the country, its highest total since April 2021, with Guangzhou, a city of 19 million, accounting for more than a quarter of those…

The rising case numbers and accompanying controls have pushed more residents across China to question the costs of the brute-force measures employed by authorities to stamp out cases, which include mandatory quarantining close contacts of Covid patients, mass testing, and lockdowns that can see people confined to their districts, neighborhoods or apartments – sometimes for months on end.

This Sky News report suggests the “fine tuning” announced last week might bring some relief but for the moment it seems this is only in a few select areas.