COVID-19 lockdowns upset the rice bowls of China's commuter workers

BEIJING: When the town of Yanjiao near Beijing was suddenly plunged into a COVID-19 lockdown last month, taxi driver Dong Tiejun was forced to drive hundreds of kilometres to avoid roadblocks and get a passenger to Tianjin, a metropolis on the northeast coast.

Border towns such as Yanjiao have grown at a dizzying rate over the past decade as office workers in Beijing looked for affordable housing nearby, with hundreds of thousands crossing the Hebei-Beijing border on a daily basis before COVID-19. Several Yanjiao commuters told Reuters that another burdensome measure was the"commuter pass" that anyone entering Beijing must now obtain and continuously update.

Authorities in Sanhe city, which is comprised of Yanjiao and nine other towns, said on Wednesday residents"would be restricted from entering and exiting Beijing" after"an abnormal nucleic acid test" was reported.Lao Yuan, 62, and his wife left their village in Hebei 10 years ago to work in a car factory in Beijing.

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