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The starkly different lifestyles of two patients who caught COVID-19 in China

Workers wearing protective suits following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak stand next to daily necessities placed on makeshift delivery racks, at a residential compound under lockdown after a case of the Omicron variant was detected, in Beijing’s Haidian district, China January 18, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

The background:

In late August of last year, China President Xi introduced his “common prosperity” push, which a senior government official explained as “Common prosperity means doing a proper job of expanding the pie and dividing the pie…”

This push to balance out the country’s wealth comes after he cracked down on some of the country’s wealthiest billionaires and companies, most notably, Jack Ma’s Ant Group.

Let’s have a look at China’s wealth situation: China’s richest 20% earn over 10 times the poorest 20%. This is a bigger gap than in the United States, Germany and France. Around half of China’s population live on or under an annual income of 12,000 yuan (US$1,858) – and this is in the world’s largest economy.

The development:

Among the COVID-19 outbreaks and cases across China, two residents caught it. According to an itinerary posted on Wednesday, one caught it after going between 30 or so jobs over two weeks in Beijing. The other was a professional woman shopping at Christian Dior SE and eating Peking duck.

These records were released publicly, which is standard for contact tracing.

China has a Twitter equivalent called Weibo, and right now, there’s a hashtag trending on the platform with people pointing out the inequality.

“I hope that leaders can pay attention to the fact that life at the bottom is still very, very hard,” wrote a user on the platform called Riverside Beard.

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