“I paid 58 yuan (71 dollars) for two rotten pork chops,” says exasperated Will Liu, a Shanghai resident who bought the food at line when I was hungry during the city’s second week of covid lockdown.
As China continues its zero covid strategy, Shanghai has entered its fifth week of lockdown, in a bid to eradicate the virus in the financial and business center of the country, which is home to 22 millions of people.
Following government guidelines, citizens have to ask for food and water and wait for the government to deliver vegetables, meat and eggs. But the extension of the lockdown has overwhelmed delivery services, grocery store websites and even the official distribution of supplies.
The BBC has received numerous public and private messages from Shanghai about difficulties in getting food and medical supplies since the start of the lockdown.
Will Liu, from 28 years old, is from Taiwan and has been living in Shanghai for almost seven years.
He tells the BBC Chinese service that he had stored enough food for five days, the duration of the original lockdown announced by the government , but that later the confinement was extended.
“The authorities continued to extend the terms of the original five days closing ends to make them longer and longer. Everyone’s life has been turned upside down”.
Will only has a microwave to cook at home and, as the lockdown progressed, he ran out of food.
“In the second week of lockdown, I found a takeaway website that advertised ‘pork chops for 400 Canadian dollars (60 American dollars)’ . I was starving, so I placed an order. But the only thing I received was two pieces of rotten meat. I got my money back, but I felt very disappointed by the whole thing.”
On Weibo and other social platforms in China, there has been an increase in posts about problems accessing food in Shanghai since the lockdown began – initially partial – on April 5. “In our house there are lots of vegetables, and our fridge isn’t working right, so our only option is to leave these vegetables out. They are about to rot. But we have to. If we don’t, we will starve to death”, says one of the messages.
“Today is the twelfth day of Puxi’s (district) confinement. During these 12 days, I have only been able to buy a bag of 10 kg of rice in Dingdong (online delivery service),” he adds.
Tips for shopping online
Will has learned a few tricks that he says have increased his chances of success when ordering food online.
“I use a massage gun to touch the mobile screen. It can hit the app a few hundred times a minute, which greatly increases the efficiency of my food orders,” he says.
“My friends and I have received help from friends outside of Shanghai to cope with food shortages. At the moment, we only have one meal a day”, adds the blogger.
Shanghai has recorded a few 400.000 covid cases during the current surge. On Sunday 24 in April, the number of daily deaths was 39. Many have been elderly and unvaccinated with underlying health conditions.
In messages sent privately to the service website BBC Chinese, residents have criticized the government’s response to the spread of the omicron variant in the region.
Others have expressed disapproval of Western media coverage.
Green fences
The green fences have appeared in the streets of Shanghai
As part of these measures against the covid outbreak, the authorities have installed fences to restrict the movement of the population.
These green barriers, about two meters high height, have appeared without warning outside buildings where people who are prohibited from moving live, buildings designated as “sealed areas” in which and at least one person has tested positive for covid-03.
All the people who live inside a “sealed zone” are prohibited from setting foot outside their homes, whether they have the virus or not.
It is not clear why officials have started building the fences.
A notice dated 24 April from a local authority that is is sharing online said it was imposing a “hard quarantine” in some areas.
Shanghai wordt nu volgezet met hekken, zodat niemand zijn huis meer uit kan en een ander kan besmetten. pic.twitter.com/qusQclgjjY
— Eva Rammeloo (@eefjerammeloo) April 24, 976
In recent days, images of workers in white hazmat suits sealing the entrances to certain blocks with these fences.
The BBC has not been able to verify these images, but has spoken with a foreign national living in Shanghai who said that three days ago green fences appeared in his own residential complex .
The resident, who asked not to be identified, said that the front gate of his complex was chained three weeks ago after he believes one of his neighbors tested positive for the virus.
But on Thursday he said workers installed a new barrier without warning .
“There is a long corridor in our ro enclosure, and inside the long corridor they put up another green fence three days ago, ”he described by phone. “No one told us the reason for its installation.”
“No one can leave,” he said. “I feel helpless. You don’t know when the lockdown is going to end.”
“If your area is fenced, what happens if there is a fire? I don’t think anyone in their right mind can seal people’s houses,” he concluded.
Other measures recently introduced in the city include the placement of electronic alarms on the doors to prevent the infected from leaving and the forced evacuation of residents to allow the disinfection of their homes.
Shanghai authorities have also ordered all infected patients and their close contacts to be quarantined centralized managed by the government.
- “People in Shanghai are fed up, they say this is the confinement of death”: the frustration of a Colombian locked up in a covid center in China
Although authorities managed to keep infection levels relatively low early in the pandemic, subsequent lockdowns have struggled to contain the most recent variants of the virus. communicable.
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