Zürcher Nachrichten - 'No choice': Shanghai residents sent out of city during Covid crackdown

EUR -
AED 3.834856
AFN 72.981026
ALL 98.491871
AMD 410.574545
ANG 1.873597
AOA 958.441534
ARS 1062.068709
AUD 1.668164
AWG 1.879297
AZN 1.774656
BAM 1.956632
BBD 2.099092
BDT 124.232814
BGN 1.958008
BHD 0.392267
BIF 3073.606664
BMD 1.044054
BND 1.4119
BOB 7.184054
BRL 6.348575
BSD 1.039642
BTN 88.383574
BWP 14.369109
BYN 3.402246
BYR 20463.455505
BZD 2.089788
CAD 1.4984
CDF 2996.434335
CHF 0.932371
CLF 0.037427
CLP 1032.725839
CNY 7.619298
CNH 7.624449
COP 4583.396412
CRC 524.522987
CUC 1.044054
CUP 27.667427
CVE 110.312953
CZK 25.108921
DJF 185.128703
DKK 7.458302
DOP 63.306913
DZD 140.708819
EGP 53.090769
ERN 15.660808
ETB 129.594994
FJD 2.419125
FKP 0.826872
GBP 0.82945
GEL 2.934095
GGP 0.826872
GHS 15.282497
GIP 0.826872
GMD 75.171679
GNF 8981.818386
GTQ 8.010405
GYD 217.502466
HKD 8.11186
HNL 26.390219
HRK 7.4889
HTG 136.00782
HUF 413.977438
IDR 16852.07323
ILS 3.801792
IMP 0.826872
INR 88.729074
IQD 1361.878967
IRR 43941.619435
ISK 145.113457
JEP 0.826872
JMD 162.65915
JOD 0.740338
JPY 163.428363
KES 134.213278
KGS 90.832546
KHR 4177.776073
KMF 486.659583
KPW 939.647883
KRW 1514.838471
KWD 0.321516
KYD 0.866368
KZT 545.98211
LAK 22754.673557
LBP 93096.577585
LKR 305.22976
LRD 188.690217
LSL 19.139837
LTL 3.08282
LVL 0.631537
LYD 5.108172
MAD 10.463148
MDL 19.149141
MGA 4905.085269
MKD 61.561171
MMK 3391.046186
MNT 3547.694854
MOP 8.322738
MRU 41.345577
MUR 49.280896
MVR 16.080872
MWK 1802.251891
MXN 20.95141
MYR 4.682524
MZN 66.718935
NAD 19.139837
NGN 1614.576632
NIO 38.256264
NOK 11.798806
NPR 141.414119
NZD 1.845107
OMR 0.401651
PAB 1.039642
PEN 3.871246
PGK 4.215792
PHP 61.207138
PKR 289.37392
PLN 4.260093
PYG 8106.446244
QAR 3.789911
RON 4.977322
RSD 117.017747
RUB 107.411783
RWF 1449.216096
SAR 3.922094
SBD 8.752883
SCR 14.548185
SDG 628.007273
SEK 11.498155
SGD 1.414228
SHP 0.826872
SLE 23.801848
SLL 21893.290418
SOS 594.152588
SRD 36.678625
STD 21609.806806
SVC 9.096867
SYP 2623.21688
SZL 19.135135
THB 35.777638
TJS 11.373235
TMT 3.664629
TND 3.312708
TOP 2.445276
TRY 36.741769
TTD 7.056
TWD 34.125736
TZS 2521.389855
UAH 43.600836
UGX 3813.621262
USD 1.044054
UYU 46.369713
UZS 13403.698233
VES 53.742914
VND 26555.509733
VUV 123.952164
WST 2.884499
XAF 656.235982
XAG 0.035143
XAU 0.000398
XCD 2.821607
XDR 0.793037
XOF 656.235982
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.404956
ZAR 19.098632
ZMK 9397.736499
ZMW 28.771231
ZWL 336.184914
  • CMSD

    0.0000

    23.56

    0%

  • BCC

    -0.2600

    122.75

    -0.21%

  • SCS

    -0.5800

    11.74

    -4.94%

  • NGG

    0.8200

    58.5

    +1.4%

  • BCE

    0.0500

    23.16

    +0.22%

  • RIO

    -0.0900

    58.64

    -0.15%

  • GSK

    0.1700

    33.6

    +0.51%

  • RBGPF

    59.9600

    59.96

    +100%

  • CMSC

    0.0200

    23.86

    +0.08%

  • JRI

    0.1100

    12.06

    +0.91%

  • RELX

    -0.3100

    45.47

    -0.68%

  • AZN

    0.9100

    65.35

    +1.39%

  • BTI

    0.1131

    36.24

    +0.31%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    7.27

    -0.14%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    8.39

    +0.12%

  • BP

    0.1900

    28.6

    +0.66%

'No choice': Shanghai residents sent out of city during Covid crackdown
'No choice': Shanghai residents sent out of city during Covid crackdown / Photo: Hector RETAMAL - AFP

'No choice': Shanghai residents sent out of city during Covid crackdown

In the middle of the night, Shanghai resident Lucy said she and her neighbours were forced into buses and taken hundreds of kilometres away from the locked-down Chinese metropolis to a makeshift quarantine centre.

Text size:

Most of Shanghai's 25 million residents have been confined to their homes for weeks as the city battles a major Covid outbreak. Hundreds of thousands of virus-positive people have been taken to makeshift facilities as China does not allow them to quarantine at home.

But some residents who tested negative told AFP that they were also forced out of their homes and taken to camps outside the city, some hundreds of kilometres away.

"The police told us that there were too many positive cases in our compound and if we carried on living here, we'd all become infected," Lucy told AFP, using only her first name for privacy reasons.

"We had no choice."

She said the virus-negative group were sent to a quarantine site containing hundreds of single-room prefab cabins in neighbouring Anhui province, 400 kilometres away, and that it was not initially clear where they going.

Lucy added that she does not know when she can go home.

AFP spoke with other Shanghai residents who said healthy, virus-negative people in some housing compounds were sent to other provinces for quarantine.

One said his neighbours had protested and refused to join.

Another from the city's Jing'an district told AFP she was taken, along with dozens of people from her residential compound, to a single-room quarantine centre in Anhui late one night.

"We all received calls from the neighbourhood committee saying that since there are too many positives in our compound, the negatives need to be transferred to hotels for isolation," that resident told AFP, preferring to stay anonymous.

She said they "felt terrified" on seeing the temporary accommodation, and had "lost trust in the Shanghai government."

- Extreme measures -

Shanghai on Monday was under a patchwork of different restrictions as new virus cases dropped to around 7,000, with 32 dead.

City authorities have imposed a three-tiered system of "freedoms", although stringent local enforcement appeared to still restrict the majority of residents to within compounds or neighbourhoods.

China's relentless pursuit of a zero-Covid policy has left many Shanghai residents chafing under the tight curbs.

The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Officials in the economic hub are likely under more pressure than elsewhere to achieve "zero-Covid at the community level" -- meaning no transmission outside quarantine centres -- according to Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

"When they face strong pressure from above to achieve zero-Covid targets, these heavy-handed, excessive measures become more likely."

"Moving negative people could be considered a pre-emptive strategy, with the expectation that more positive cases may be found if they stay there," Huang added.

Chinese officials are routinely sacked after virus outbreaks for perceived failures in Covid control.

Tens of thousands of close contacts of virus cases have been quarantined in neighbouring provinces, according to official news agency Xinhua.

But there has been no mention in official media of the relocation of negative cases.

Shanghai authorities have faced wide criticism after they initially announced phased four-day lockdowns in different parts of the city that were not then lifted.

Tall metal barriers were erected around some locked-down compounds in recent days, as part of measures described as a "hard lockdown".

F.Carpenteri--NZN