China authorities apologise after a three-year-old dies in COVID lockdown
Chinese local authorities apologised after a three-year-old boy died of carbon monoxide poisoning when medical care was delayed because of a COVID lockdown, in a rare admission of responsibility. The northwestern city of Lanzhou has been locked down for nearly a month under China's harsh zero-COVID policy, which has seen millions of people across the country confined to their homes and often complaining of poor conditions, food shortages and slow emergency responses. Local police had earlier confirmed the death of a child in a Tuesday statement but did not mention delays in accessing medical treatment. The same day footage of people desperately administering the child CPR on a flatbed tricycle spread rapidly, along with videos of small neighbourhood protests that evening. The boy's father, surnamed Tuo, wrote on social media Wednesday that he had been denied permission to leave his housing compound by workers stationed at a checkpoint, and that an ambulance did not arrive in time. Over an hour later, he managed to break out of the compound and flag down a taxi to a hospital, shortly after which his son was pronounced dead, he said. On Thursday district health authorities...