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Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates people living with HIV/AIDS's (PLWHA) access to antiretroviral drugs during China's COVID-19 outbreaks. While the official health sector has the primary control of PLWHA's records and treatments, civil organisations for HIV/AIDS care take a more active role in this process.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates PLWHA's access to antiretroviral drugs during China's handling of COVID-19 outbreaks, taking a case study of PLWHA's experiences in Xi'an's lockdown from the end of 2021. Utilising social media group observations, ethnographic interviews, and discourse analysis, I record the voluntary movements of drug deliveries facilitated by local civil organisations for HIV/AIDS care, reflecting on a contrast between an 'autonomy' at the civil level and the official health sector's expected role. For HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, China's official health sector has taken a dominant position in policymaking and the control of resources. The top-down channel of health-related knowledge production and policy implementation of pandemics intends to enact the governmentality with the total control of biopower, overseeing the population as an integral subject of health needs. Only the official can define high-risk population groups, designate the corresponding measures and distribute resources. This system failed to realise the PLWHA's need for regular access to antiretroviral drugs when the government implemented a universal, compulsory lockdown, as the restrictions of movements only considered eliminating the COVID-19 transmission. In this context, while the official still controls the decisive resources, including PLWHA's records and treatment drugs, the civil organisations took a more active role in communicating the information and ensuring the basic drug supplies for PLWHA. Compared with the official's initial ignorance of PLWHA's health needs, the bottom-up responses demonstrate that people's proactivity and autonomy of actions could become vital for the expressions of individualities within a top-down, authoritative mode of health administration.