BEIJING —
Zhao Renmi awakened to the sound of village officials shouting that everyone had to pack and go, without explanation of where or for how long. Word was spreading of a new COVID-19 outbreak, so she gathered her children and obeyed.
“My heart is really troubled. It’s hard to bear,” said Zhao, a woman with close-cropped hair who lives in rural Hebei, in a video posted this week on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. She was one of about 20,000 residents being evacuated from 12 nearby villages, according to local reports and health officials, as part of China’s crackdown on its largest coronavirus outbreak in months.