Photo: Screenshot of the video that shows a toilet cubicle has a label on its door, reading "toilet cubicle for Hubei natives."

An expressway service area in southwestern China has reportedly demarcated separate toilets for people from Hubei, a province severely hit by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, drawing public backlash for its visible discrimination against Hubei residents.

The expressway company in charge of the service area, confirmed the incident to the Global Times on Tuesday, adding that it removed the demarcation on Monday.

A man who claimed to be a Hubei resident uploaded a video clip of the toilet in the Yongfu expressway service area in Yongfu County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, online on Saturday, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

The video showed two toilet cubicles had labels on their doors, clearly reading "toilet cubicle for Hubei natives."

The man said such segregation aimed at a particular region was neither necessary nor appropriate, as people in Hubei, including him, have been certified healthy after layers of thorough scrutiny before being allowed to exit the province.

"I was angry by the discrimination against we Hubei people," he said in the video, posted on Yishou, an online video platform. "Hubei has contributed and sacrificed a lot to the fight against the virus, how can other regions treat us like this?"

All the express service zones in Yongfu County, including the one in the video, had demarcated toilets for Hubei people at the request of Guangxi expressway management authority, said a Yongfu-based subsidiary company of Guangxi Communications Investment Group Corporation that manages local express service zones.

The company refuted the allegations of discrimination leveled against it. "It (the demarcation) was just a measure for preventing and controlling the epidemic," said an administrative staffer of the company surnamed Tang.

Tang added that in practice they didn't force Hubei drivers or passengers to use the demarcated toilets. "We neither checked their ID cards nor monitored the bathrooms," she told the Global Times Tuesday.

Tang's company removed all the controversial labels from the toilets on Monday.

The controversial demarcation has sparked outrage among the Chinese netizens, especially those from Hubei. 

"As a Hubei native, it makes me feel very bad and self-abased," a Weibo user, Yejiayizi, commented on the video.

Hubei resident You Yuan, 29, said he was offended by the toilet demarcation. "As a local-level virus-prevention measure, I didn't see any scientific basis behind it," he told the Global Times Tuesday.

You mentioned a few previous media reports about jobseekers from Hubei facing rejection from employers in some cities of southern Guangdong Province, which he thought were obvious discrimination against Hubei residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a very complicated crisis with its origin remaining unclear, but many people simply label Hubei as a source of infection or at least associate the province with something dangerous, You sighed.

Hubei reported only one new case of infection on Monday. You said the epidemic situation in the province has improved significantly as most of its areas have gradually resumed production and the social order is returning to normal.

"It's improper to demonize Hubei and its people," he added.