Authorities in Shanghai are ramping up their zero-COVID efforts amid a recent flare-up in cases before the coming national congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in mid-October.
The city that is the financial hub of China reported 34 active COVID-19 cases as of Oct. 9, three of which have symptoms and the rest being asymptomatic, according to the Chinese regime’s national health commission on Oct. 10, although the true number of cases is suspected to be much higher due to official underreporting and censorship.
According to a local information website, Shanghai has designated one area as high-risk, with 33 others being medium-risk, and 27 low-risk areas as of Oct. 10. The city of 26 million has locked down some of its universities and neighborhood communities since the beginning of the month, according to local reports.
Residents in high-risk areas are strictly banned from leaving their homes, residents in medium-risk areas are allowed to move about within their residential compound, and residents in low-risk areas are able to leave their compound on condition that they can produce negative PCR results from within the past 48 hours and continue to test negative almost every day.
Several universities in Shanghai have been locked down again in this round of lockdowns, including the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Tongji University, Fudan University’s Fenglin campus and Handan campus, and Songjiang University Town in the outskirts of Shanghai.
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics reported one positive COVID case on Oct. 7, which saw it to force all its students into a makeshift quarantine facility seemingly made from shipping containers near a stadium that evening, which the students complained had inadequate conditions in videos posted online.
From the online posts that The Epoch Times could access, students claimed that they were all isolated in the containers no matter whether they were close contacts, secondary contacts, or people who didn’t have any contact at all with the single positive case. Some students with green health codes were also forced to stay in the quarantine facility.
The Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times reached out to the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics for comment on Oct. 9 and had received no reply as of press time.
The Epoch Times is not able to verify the authenticity of the footage.
A Frustrated Resident
Ms. Xu (pseudonym), a resident of Minhang District in Shanghai, uploaded a video clip online on Oct. 9, showing a desperate girl crying and saying that she’s been locked down since March in different locations in the metropolis.
The girl in the video wept and said that she had been isolated since the pandemic broke out in March at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
“I have just come back home, and I have had no contact with him [the positive patient],” the girl yelled, distraught and very agitated as seen in the video.
“How can I possibly relax?” she blasted when local pandemic control personnel told her to relax.
While the rest of the world has shifted to living with the virus, the communist regime ruling China still continues with its harsh zero-COVID measures. Shanghai authorities recently decided to adopt five categories for red health codes, according to Shine, a local state-owned English-language publication in Shanghai.
These five categories include those who test positive in an initial or mixed-tube PCR test, confirmed cases, asymptomatic and suspected cases, travelers from overseas who are under central or home quarantine, and “close contacts and secondary contacts of positive cases, along with people who had been to high or medium-risk areas,” Shine reported on Oct. 8.
The Chinese regime uses big data to regulate people’s movement by controlling the color of their health codes on everyone’s mobile phone app, which they are forced to download. Residents have to scan their health code when they go to any venue outside their home, including public transport, shopping facilities, and entertainment venues.
Shao Jun, director of Shanghai’s big data center, said in a press conference on Oct. 10 that all travelers to Shanghai must take three PCR tests in the three days after their arrival in the city, or their health code will turn yellow.
People with a green health code are able to move around relatively freely, people with a yellow health code can walk around within their own residential compound, while people with a red code are locked in their residences and forbidden to go out.
Xu told The Epoch Times on Oct. 9 that she was very sympathetic to the girl.
“Everyone is very disgusted now. We have to do nucleic acid every 3 days, and the throat hurts,” she said, “I feel that the virus will not kill us, but these behaviors [zero-COVID measures] will. But if we don’t take the PCR tests, we will not be able to go out—we can’t use public transport.”
Xu says she doubts the official number of positive cases.
“Who knows whether [the official data] is true or not? Positive cases just keep popping up here and there.” She blasted the local authorities for tightening restrictions again and censoring online posts.
“There will be no peace before the [CCP’s] 20th national congress. We can’t talk online. If we do, the police will come to us immediately. We are all living in prisons,” Xu said.
Local authorities have been stepping up their harsh zero-COVID measures in a desperate manner ahead of the coming national congress of the CCP.
Sun Shaocheng, CCP party secretary of Inner Mongolia, said at a pandemic prevention and control meeting that to prevent the spread of the epidemic to Beijing, authorities must curb the spread of the pandemic even if it means “killing a chicken with a butcher’s knife that is used to slaughter a bull”—a Chinese proverb for going above and beyond, like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly.
Stockpiling Food, Again
Shanghai resident Mr. Wang (pseudonym) told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Oct. 9 that he had started to stockpile food for the lockdown.
“The [COVID] virus isn’t frightening, but the policies are,” Wang said in the phone interview. “The authorities can casually turn your health code red. If they say you are an asymptomatic case, then you are asymptomatic; there’s no way for you to prove that you’re not. We, commoners, are like a lamb to the slaughter,” he said.
Wang added that the only thing he can do is prepare food for his family.
“I have stockpiled some rice and noodles. I don’t know exactly what is happening, but I know the trouble is back again.”
Lin Cenxin and Yi Ru contributed to the article.
From The Epoch Times
