6 hours
image source, Will Liu
The two pork ribs denounced by the Chinese blogger.
“I paid 400 yuan ($60) for two rotten pork chops,” says exasperated Will Liu, a Shanghai resident who bought the food online when he was hungry during the city’s second week of COVID-19 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 country’s business and financial hub, which is home to 25 million 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.
image source, Getty Images
The government’s food supply has been compromised by the magnitude of the operation.
Will Liu, 28, is from Taiwan and has been living in Shanghai for almost seven years.
He tells the BBC’s Chinese service that he had stockpiled enough food for five days, the length of the original lockdown announced by the government, but then the lockdown was extended.
“The authorities continued to extend the original five-day lockdown to make it 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 the lockdown, I found a takeaway website that advertised ‘Canadian $400 (US$60) pork chops.’ I was starving, so I placed an order. But all I got was two pieces of rotten meat. I got my money back, but I felt so disappointed in the whole thing.”
image source, Archyde.com
Shanghai’s 25 million people depend on the official food supply.
Weibo and other social platforms in China have seen an increase in posts about the problems accessing food in Shanghai since the lockdown began – at first partial – on April 5. “In our house there are lots of vegetables, and our refrigerator does not works fine, 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,” reads one of the messages.
“Today is the twelfth day of Puxi’s (district) lockdown. During these 12 days, I have only been able to buy a 10kg bag 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. You can hit the app a few hundred times a minute, which greatly increases the efficiency of my food orders,” he says.
image source, Will Liu
Will Liu shows off the device he uses to order food when food becomes available.
“My friends and I have received help from friends outside of Shanghai to deal with food shortages. At the moment, we only eat one meal a day,” adds the blogger.
Shanghai has recorded some 400,000 Covid cases during the current surge. On Sunday, April 24, the daily death tollit was of 39. Many have been elderly and unvaccinated people with underlying health problems.
In messages posted privately to the BBC’s Chinese service website, residents have criticized the government’s response to the spread of the omicron variant in the region.
Others have expressed disapproval of the Western media coverage.
green fences
image source, Archyde.com
Green billboards have appeared on 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, have appeared without prior notice outside buildings where people who are prohibited from moving live, buildings designated as “sealed areas” in which at least one person has tested positive by covid-19.
All people living within a “sealed zone” are prohibited from setting foot outside their homes, whether or not they have the virus.
It is not clear why officials have started building the fences.
A notice dated April 23 from a local authority that is being shared online said it was imposing a “hard quarantine” in some areas.
In recent days, images of workers in white hazmat suits sealing the entrances to certain blocks with these fences have spread on Chinese social media.
The BBC has not been able to verify these images, but has spoken to a foreign national living in Shanghai who said that green fences appeared in his own residential complex three days ago.
The resident, who requested not be identifiedsaid the front door 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 compound, and inside the long corridor they put up another green fence three days ago,” he described by phone. “Nobody told us the reason for its installation.”
“Nobody can get out,” he said. “I feel powerless. You don’t know when the lockdown is going to end.”
“If your area is fenced off, what happens if there’s a fire? I don’t think anyone in their right mind can seal off people’s houses,” he concluded.
image source, EPA
Some residents who got a second negative covid test are preparing to leave a confinement center.
Other measures recently introduced in the city include placing electronic alarms on doors to prevent the infected from leaving and the forced evacuation of residents to allow their homes to be disinfected.
Shanghai authorities have also ordered that all infected patients and their close contacts be transferred to a centralized quarantine run by the government.
Although authorities managed to keep infection levels relatively low early in the pandemic, subsequent lockdowns have struggled to contain the most transmissible recent variants of the virus.
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