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‘Treated like a virus’: Chinese teacher says she was sacked because she’d had Covid
- A week into her new job, He Yuxiu says she was fired after being asked by the school principal if she had ever had the coronavirus
- Many others say they have been shunned after being infected, prompting the premier to warn that discrimination will be punished
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More Chinese are speaking out about the discrimination they have faced after having Covid-19, with some unable to find work or even losing their jobs because they had the virus.
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One of them is 24-year-old He Yuxiu, who was living in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, when Russia invaded in February. She was also recovering from Covid-19.
The postgraduate student shared her experience of being stranded in her flat in videos posted to Chinese social media, showing her building shaking during shelling nearby. Weeks later she was evacuated to Hungary by bus with the help of the Chinese embassy, and from there she returned to China where she tested positive for a second time, during quarantine.
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She recovered and landed her first job, teaching Russian at a school in a small town in the northern province of Hebei, in late May. But He said a week later she was sacked – because she had previously had the coronavirus.
“Social discrimination is the biggest issue after you’ve been infected with Covid-19 [in China],” she said.
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