Chinese censors have deleted a news report investigating claims that local governments had brought back a hated disease-tracking app that was used during the “zero-COVID” era to confine people to their homes, amid an ongoing wave of respiratory infections across the country, according to local media reports and residents.
The Dec. 1 Top News article cited social media posts across China as saying that local governments in Sichuan and Guangdong had both brought the app back online after retiring it following the lifting of three years of harsh COVID restrictions in December 2022, with users posting screenshots of their “green” health code from the app.
While the article remained visible in syndicated form on Sohu.com’s mobile website on Monday, it had disappeared from the Top News website.
Guangzhou officials told the news service that some aspects of the app had never been…
