Residents say China used health tracker for crowd control

By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Angry bank customers were travelling to a central China city to try and retrieve their savings from troubled rural banks when they were stopped in their tracks. The reason was a simple QR code. The QR code, which residents are required to have, is supposed to display one’s health status, such as if they have COVID-19 or have been a close contact. In central Henan province, some Chinese people found that the health code was used as a way to enforce crowd control. The event has started a national debate on how a tool designed for public health has been appropriated by political forces to tamp down controversy.