The woman was allegedly denied entry to a hospital in the city of Xi’an because her negative Covid test was four hours too old

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Chinese hospital officials have been fired after a pregnant woman lost her baby after she was denied entry at a Xi’an hospital due to coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

On the night of 1 January a woman in labour was denied entry to the Xi’an Gaoxin hospital because her negative test result was four hours too old. She began bleeding heavily while waiting outside, and was eventually admitted but the baby died.

As Beijing pursues its solitary path, observers are asking whether the policy is about protecting public health – or social order

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Desperate residents in China’s western Xi’an city are running out of food after they were barred from grocery shopping in a fierce lockdown. In the southern province of Guangxi, people who broke Covid laws were recently publicly shamed by being paraded through the streets in Hazmat suits with placards round their necks.

The rest of the world is learning, slowly and with some difficulty, to live with Covid-19, but in China, authorities are doubling down on their “zero-Covid” policy: trying to stamp out the disease whenever it appears, and at any cost. A single case in a border town led to 200,000 people being locked down late last month.