SHANGHAI, China — Residents stuck inside a
compound nearly a week after
Shanghai’s much vaunted reopening following a
virus outbreak shouted at hazmat-clad officials on Monday, as fears grew that
some city neighborhoods were being locked down again.
اضافة اعلان
Authorities in the financial hub eased many harsh
restrictions last Wednesday, after confining most of the city’s 25 million
inhabitants to their homes since late March, as China battled its worst
COVID outbreak in two years.
But hundreds of thousands have not yet been allowed
out of their homes, while others have immediately been placed back under local
lockdowns after a brief liberation that triggered shopping sprees and
booze-fuelled street parties.
In downtown Xuhui district on Monday, an AFP
reporter witnessed about a dozen people in one fenced-off housing compound
shouting angrily at hazmat-clad officials.
From behind rows of fences, crowds chanted “Serve
the people!” at officials standing on the other side.
One resident, who gave the surname Li, said tempers
had flared after the community was suddenly put back into lockdown on Saturday.
“I’m very indignant,” he told AFP. “It’s been two
months and we can’t cope anymore. We’re all negative (on COVID tests), why lock
us in a cage?”
A local media outlet said in a swiftly deleted
social media post that residents of the compound were angry at the threat of
being sent to state-run quarantine facilities despite being designated
“low-risk”.
Li said virus-negative people were being transferred
to quarantine hotels every day, sometimes in the middle of the night.
“It’s had a huge impact on everyone’s lives,” he
said. “Our mood is very bleak.”
Some restrictions lifted
Shanghai has creaked back to life in recent days, as commuters have begun
to return to their offices and residents have gathered in parks and along the
city’s historic waterfront.
But authorities
have said over half a million people remain under movement curbs in the city.
Under
China’s
stringent zero-COVID approach, all positive cases are isolated and close
contacts — often including the entire building or community where they live —
are made to quarantine.
People from the
financial hub still face lengthy quarantines or outright bans on entering other
parts of the country.
A phased,
voluntary reopening of the city’s schools began on Monday, with around 250
schools open and children in the final two years of high school the first
allowed to return.
Malls, convenience
stores, pharmacies and beauty salons are only allowed to open at limited
capacity, while cinemas and gyms remain closed.
Taxi services and
private cars are allowed in “low-risk” areas only.
Shanghai and the
capital
Beijing — which has also been trying to stamp out a cluster of cases —
both posted single-digit numbers of infections on Monday.
Beijing eased a
ban on indoor dining as more employees returned to their offices after weeks of
working from home.
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