[throwawaaay129]

How is beating pets to death political posturing..? Someone thought it'd make them look good?

Most likely it was some misinformed overzealous local official. Pets from pretty early on in the pandemic have been known to catch corona. I think the question of if you can catch the virus from a pet is inconclusive (last I heard) - but obviously very unlikely

If you are trying to get to zero COVID so your city isn't shutdown and thousands of people don't loose their way of life then you're prolly quarantining sick people. No one to take care of their potentially disease spreading pets, so local official decides better safe than sorry

It's messed up, but it's totally not unreasonable for someone on the local level to make this kind of call in a high pressure situation with minimal guidelines and the safety of a city on the line

[vore]

Sorry, I meant the kind of reporting in both the US and China on these things is political posturing, not the killing of the pets.