Chinese singer claims she ‘prepared for being infected’ with Covid before New Year concert

A popular singer from China is facing massive backlash online for claiming that she deliberately contracted Covid and adding that she had “prepared for being infected”.

The 38-year-old, known as the “Dolphin Princess”, told her 43 million followers on Weibo that she visited the homes of “sheep” – a colloquial term for those who contracted Covid.

Ms Zhang, in now-deleted posts on the Chinese social media platform, also bizarrely shared details of her workout routine during her alleged infection and claimed her alleged symptoms “disappeared” after a day.

The singer said the reason for doing so was so she could prepare for and perform at an upcoming New Year’s Eve concert without fear of contracting the virus.

“I’ve been prepared for being infected. Then I began to catch a fever, my throat began to ache, my nose began to ache, my whole body began to ache, my head began to ache... before I finally fell asleep,” she wrote in the deleted post.

“I was concerned that my condition during the New Year’s Eve performance would be affected, so I met a group of people who have tested positive since I currently have time to recover from the virus,” she added.

“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,” she said in her post, without providing evidence for her claims.

There is no scientific evidence to show Covid can be cured only by taking vitamin C and drinking water.

Her claims have shocked her fans and those following the surge in Covid cases in China after strict restrictions were lifted by the government.

They took screenshots of Ms Zhang’s post and shared it on Weibo to criticise the singer, forcing her to apologise.

“I don’t understand why she is so insensitive. As a public figure, how could she say this? She is encouraging people to get infected, which is not OK,” a Douyin user was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post newspaper.

“It’s risky for a person with Covid to do physical exercises. Zhang Liangying doesn’t even have this common sense,” wrote another user.

“I didn’t consider things carefully before making my previous posts. I apologise to the public,” the singer said in a Weibo post later.

“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.”