Shanghai residents voiced frustration Friday at a week of snap Covid
lockdowns, complaining online about food shortages and bewildering stay-at-home
orders.
اضافة اعلان
After initially vowing they would avoid a city-wide lockdown, officials
changed tack this week and announced a phased shutdown which divided China's
financial centre in two so authorities can test its 25 million residents.
A four-day lockdown of the Pudong area began on Monday, followed by
stay-at-home orders for the densely populated Puxi zone that were meant to
start on Friday.
But people in many Puxi neighbourhoods were suddenly ordered inside early on
Thursday, while much of Pudong remained closed on Friday, angering residents on
both sides.
"This is de facto city-wide lockdown," one Weibo user said.
"Many Pudong streets and compounds are still in lockdown, few are
lifted."
Authorities late Thursday published a complex "grid management"
plan for reopening that would keep all residential compounds closed where a
positive test is found.
The restrictions have led to panic-buying and a dire shortage of delivery
drivers to get food to the millions now trapped at home.
Residents of some buildings have skirted restrictions by taking deliveries
attached to ropes lowered to the ground, according to AFP reporters.
"It's complicated to buy food online, because the number of delivery
people is limited," said Sun Jian, 29, a resident in Puxi.
She added that the lockdown had been "badly managed" as people
were forced to queue together for Covid tests, adding to the risk of
transmission.
"What everyone is most afraid of now is not getting sick, but being
sent to isolation rooms in makeshift facilities, where the conditions are very
bad," she told AFP.
A Pudong resident surnamed Dong said his wife and three-year-old son were
taken to centralised quarantine after testing positive, but have no access to
hot water.
"No one tells us when the quarantine will be lifted," he told AFP.
"I'm quite anxious."
- 'Dynamic zero'
policy -
China reported nearly 104,000 domestic Covid infections in March, with 90
percent of the recent cases found in Shanghai or northeastern Jilin province,
health officials said Friday.
National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng told a press briefing it
remains necessary to "unswervingly" adhere to the "dynamic
zero" policy of stamping out clusters as they emerge.
But other experts cautioned this may take time given the infectiousness of
the Omicron variant and number of asymptomatic cases.
As patience starts to fray in Shanghai among a public who until now have
broadly acquiesced to virus controls, top city official Ma Chunlei on Thursday
made a rare admission of failure, saying the city was "insufficiently
prepared" for the outbreak.
Shanghai is recording several thousand cases a day, making it the heart of
China's worst Covid-19 outbreak since the country's first brush with the virus
in Wuhan was controlled in early 2020.
More than 7,300 virus cases were recorded nationwide on Friday. While tiny
compared with many countries, the case numbers are alarming to China's
leadership, who have tethered the nation to a "zero-Covid" approach.
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