It’s Viral! Why Chinese pop singer Jane Zhang deliberately infected herself with COVID-19

It’s a worrying situation in China. There is a surge in COVID-19 cases, chaos at hospitals, crematoriums are overcrowded and there’s a medicine shortage. Experts fear “millions of deaths” and the possibility of new variants emerging from the country. Amid all this, Chinese singer and songwriter Jane Zhang deliberately infected herself with the coronavirus.

But why?

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Meeting virus carriers

As China struggles to cope with a deadly wave, triggered by the BF.7 Omicron variant, Jane Zhang, known in the country as Zhang Liangying, said that she caught the infection as she went to visit friends who had tested positive. She took to the Chinese microblogging site Weibo to reveal that she met “sheep”, a term used for virus carriers in the mainland, according to a report by South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The post left millions of fans of the C-pop singer shocked. Zhang said that she wanted to catch the virus so that she would not face the risk of infection during her New Year’s Eve concert. “I was concerned that my condition during the New Year’s Eve performance would be affected. So I met a group of people who tested positive since I currently have time to recover from the virus,” she confessed.

Also read: The Real Picture: Why China’s official COVID death count doesn’t stack up

‘I had COVID for a day’

The 38-year-singer said that after meeting with infected patients she caught a fever, had a sore throat, and body ache, all associated with the coronavirus. She said that while her symptoms were similar to that of those suffering from COVID-19, they lasted only for a day.

“After sleeping for a day and a night, all my symptoms disappeared … I just drank plenty of water and took vitamin C, without taking any medicine before I got well,” Zhang said.

She also shared details about her workouts when she was down with the virus and went on to ask if such a short period of illness should be considered a positive case, the SCMP report says. “I am not sure if it’s appropriate to ask, but does my case with symptoms lasting for only one day count as a positive case?” she asked on Weibo last Friday.

The apology

The singer’s post, which soon went viral, received backlash. After facing criticism, Zhang was forced to take it down and apologise. “I didn’t consider things carefully before making my previous posts. I apologise to the public,” she wrote on Weibo.

She argued that if she got infected during the concert her colleagues would be at risk. “I was worried that if I got infected when the concert was held, it would increase the risk of my colleagues being infected again. So I was thinking that since it is an inevitable thing, why not get ill now when I don’t need to leave home so that I can go to work after I recover? It would be safer for all of us,” Zhang said, attempting to defend her shocking decision.

Singer #JaneZhang says that she’s worried she’ll be sick for New Years concerts, so she decided to visit some covid+ people to get sick and get over it

Now she’s getting bashed because she said she recovered in 1 day, lost weight and now has good skin