SHANGHAI: 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 (Jun 6), as fears grew that some city neighbourhoods were being locked down again.
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-19 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-19 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.”
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