What life’s really like in locked-down Shanghai
Residents talk Covid camps, food shortages and neighbours spying on each other
‘If you test positive, the quarantine countdown resets to 14 days for the entire compound’
Today will be my 26th day of lockdown. My girlfriend and I live in a onebedroom flat on the eighth floor. I moved here in March 2020, taking one of the last planes in before borders closed. I knew about Covid and that lockdown was a risk but went anyway.
I’m working at a school and, because many foreign teachers have left, we’ve had preferential treatment to get us to stay. We’ve been sent two packages of fruit, veg, meat, milk and eggs in the last three weeks – I shared some with my 80-year-old neighbour.
We’re in flats on the top two floors of a hotel and there was drama yesterday because the hotel owner has been allowing guests to check in and out and a disgruntled resident called the police.
We have no balcony and I only go outside to get tested. Sometimes this is weekly, sometimes every two weeks.
If you test positive you are sent to a Covid camp for 14 days with other sufferers. Often these are grim sheds with Portaloos and no showers.
I don’t know if I’d be able to leave to go back to the UK. The British Consulate can apparently arrange an airport transfer – people are paying over £1,000 for taxis.
Recently rules changed so we’re allowed to put the rubbish out! But that’s only in the stairwell along the corridor.
Early on I ordered six 20-litre barrels of water (you can’t drink the tap water here) but then deliveries were banned – apparently because police stopped 20 courier drivers in one district who all tested positive (which I doubt).
It’s ridiculous, because we have all tested negative for 25 days. But China is a culture where people follow the rules without questioning it.
We have little arguments but overall try to be there for each other.
As told to Alison Butcher
*Name has been changed
‘We’re more afraid of running out of food than infection and detainment’
Shen Yang, 36, author of ‘More Than One Child’
Breaking into people’s homes and detaining the infected in makeshift lazarettos; infants being forcibly separated from their parents; chronically ill patients unable to receive treatment; a dog being beaten to death out of fear of contagion…
Every time I open Wechat [a Chinese instant messaging and social media/ news app], I get sucked into a huge black hole of anguish. I wish I could just put the phone away, but I can’t. I need to compete with millions of people in the new “Food Race”, scanning countless different groups to sign up for group-buying deals before they run out.
What terrifies people the most isn’t the risk of infection and detainment, but rather running out of food. No one could have ever imagined the mighty Shanghai would have feared famine.
The latest policy states that if your residential compound has even just one case, everyone is urged to stay home. And if you dare to take an innocent walk around the compound, behind every window there are eyes spying on you and your photo will appear immediately in the local chat group.
When you thought the red guards from the cultural revolution were long gone, here they are in their mobile-wielding version. Yet you can’t really blame them: if your next test is positive, the quarantine countdown resets to 14 days for the entire compound.
The violent enforcement of the Zero Covid Policy, the countless tragic ways it affected people and the “I am just following orders” trope used by authorities are disturbingly similar to the One Child Policy in the 1980s, which tore me apart from my family for 11 years just because I was the second daughter. Here again, after 36 years, I’m witnessing another dark period of the Chinese history.
‘Trading food with neighbours has become the most trusted way to get what you need’
Tyrone, 30, school housemaster
Last night my partner’s online yoga class was interrupted by a commotion outside the building behind us. It seems a handful of residents were angry, and one brave youth displayed his frustration at the security gate. Moments later police arrived, and the protest was quelled. This may not sound like much, but having lived in China for seven years, it feels unprecedented and significant.
In that same building they have confirmed Covid cases, we are told. Even though we don’t share an entrance, have no communal area in which to mix, have been locked in for 25 days and returned all negative results for our building, we are also in a strict lockdown. I am told this is due to the fact that our local community needs to return all negative results before we are free to walk our dogs.
Trading food items with neighbours has become the most trusted way to get what you need, as deliveries are mostly closed, in short supply or only delivering for bulk orders.
Much of my job is helping students pastorally with their wellbeing, which is a tough gig at the moment. The common question is “Sir, when will we be back at school?”, to which I can only honestly reply that I do not know. Whilst I try to lessen their concerns, I am myself becoming more pessimistic about how the situation is unfolding and have booked a flight out of here in June.
We have stopped focusing on short-term ambitions for freedom and now put our energy into the prospect of getting home in June. The cracks have appeared and we don’t want to be here when it shatters.
‘The first thing my son asks each morning is ‘Can we go out today?’
Mika, 46, producer
I live with my husband and two boys. As a working mother, I’m up against it with both housework and office work.
My boys are in online classes all day. The teenager is missing his school very much. Every morning, the first thing he says is, “Can we go out today?” It’s devastating how many times the answer is “no”.
The son in primary school is still cheerful as he can always amuse himself playing with our cat, or reading books. Most of his dreams are about playing with his buddies.
He’s become very talkative at home since he hasn’t got playmates to talk to, which can be a problem when I’m trying to get my work done.
I’m also trying to keep track of what is happening with the city’s Covid policy, especially in relation to vulnerable groups, such as the elderly. It’s even more difficult for them as they can’t do online shopping for groceries so I’ve been helping a charity with their food donations and deliveries.
I knew Shanghai is an ageing society, but I didn’t realise there were so many old people living nearby us. Since the lockdown, I’ve discovered there are two people who are over 100 years old in my area. I’ve got to know my community better. This is the only silver lining to our situation.