Zero covid policy in China: Shanghai, in the midst of a “health dictatorship”

Shanghai has been behind bars for 57 days. Since April 1 – or even more for some neighborhoods – the largest city in China has been confined. Shanghainese are suffering from the government’s decision but are increasingly making their despair heard. The video The Voice of April lists all their cries of anger and their cries for help. It was massively published on WeChat (the Chinese messaging network) and then quickly deleted, the next day. Our interlocutor, who wanted to remain anonymous, has been living there for almost 3 years. She recounts her Shanghainese experience, in the midst of a zero covid policy.

What are the differences between the treatment of residents by the Chinese government at the start of the pandemic and the current treatment?

Shanghai has never been closed like this. In 2020, most stores were boarded up, but you could walk out of your house. Today, we are literally padlocked inside our homes. The roads are blocked, there are checkpoints everywhere. A palisade has even been built around our building so that people cannot escape through their windows… Between going out for a walk, being able to buy some fruit and now die inside your home, there is a huge difference. In Shanghai, there are a lot of cleaners, workers and VTC drivers. Today, they can no longer go to work. It’s been 50 days, or even more for some, that their gates have been closed. For a week we couldn’t order food. Only after 7 days of confinement, the government sent supplies, but not everyone had any, there were people who started not having anything to eat.

Afterwards, a kind of mutual aid was organized on WeChat: people contacted wholesalers from other provinces to buy food. The deliverers then received authorization to distribute the packages in Shanghai. But, that was not enough; I ordered a rice pack and it took 10 days to arrive.

In neighborhoods where the number of covid cases was high, the government banned these arrivals to prevent the transmission of the virus. Expatriates give themselves the right to criticize the situation, but the great novelty is that the Chinese criticize, revolt and communicate on the subject. I have been in China for 3 years and I have never seen such a movement. Videos of revolt against government repression are circulating more and more.

What is your daily life for more than a month?

Every morning we have to go for a PCR test. For two hours, our portals are open, until everyone does. But we are forbidden to go out then take a walk. In the evening, we have to do a self-test, take a picture of it and put it on the government’s computer system. When you are positive or contact case, there are several possibilities. Either we go to a large exhibition center, where thousands of people are piled up on top of each other. The toilets are unsanitary and there are no showers. Either we go to a quarantine hotel room. Often, hotels are dirty and everything is bleached, even the meal trays. On the fortieth day, my husband tested positive; the French Consulate negotiated so that he would not be sent to a centre. He therefore spent 7 days in a quarantine hotel. There, every day at 6 a.m., you have to do a PCR test.

Here there is a very simple rule: when a case is found in a house, the entire residence is blocked for 15 days. There are residents who can’t take it anymore because positive cases are detected every day in their street. And what we’ve all been through is “silent period”, the period of silence. For 10 days all the roads were blocked around our neighborhood, they locked everything down, deliveries were banned. No one was coming back. No one was coming out. One of my neighbors had no more food for her baby and there was nothing we could do about it. The goal? Put an even stricter lockdown in each neighborhood to reach zero covid cases in June. The government announced a phased release on June 1, but for us it is not clear.

How are you handling the crisis?

For a period, being case contact and my husband positive, we waited to be picked up. In both cases, the Chinese federal police will pick you up from your home to take you to a center. The day before, she comes knocking at your door to inform you that she will be back the next day. She asks you if you agree and films the exchange. I’ve seen videos where people say they don’t agree. They were then forcibly taken for breaking the law, possibly to prison, or to custody. Better to agree. For us, this period was very stressful. I no longer slept. I was afraid that they would come for me, I didn’t know what time they were going to come. I have girlfriends who were taken in the night. As soon as I heard a noise on the stairs, I panicked. When my husband was taken away, I was very sad to see him go. I waited for a week but no one ever came. The situation is all the more complex that we are not in our country, with this tendency that China has, to cause fear.

Do you feel that this zero covid policy is bearing fruit?

Yes, we cannot deny it. Containment is very strict, there are aberrations – such as bringing residents down every morning for PCR tests – but the measures taken considerably reduce the number of infected cases. Shanghai succeeds in containing the virus. Compare the situation in Hong Kong, where the lockdown was not as strict; there, there have been more than 9,000 deaths since the start of the epidemic. Since 2020, there have been 5,000 deaths in mainland China, for 1.5 billion inhabitants. In Shanghai, 500 dead for 70 million inhabitants, according to the government. Without strict containment, there would have been big problems, given the density of the population.

Is the government right to do so?

Yes, because they take the side of saving lives. The problem here is that the elderly are not vaccinated, I don’t know why. In addition, we have all been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine without messenger RNA, which would protect us less. The government is therefore aware of the weaknesses of its health system. And his ability to react impresses me. Since China is not a democracy, with the snap of a finger, a decision is made. If tomorrow, the government decides the end of confinement, everything stops.

But the decision taken 50 days ago is very heavy. The conditions are inhuman. For example, children are separated from parents when they are sent to the center, and pets are often killed, since no one can take care of them. The Chinese government applies industrial processes to human beings, our freedoms – that of going out but also of staying at home – are suppressed. We could speak of a health dictatorship.

Interview by Juliette Gendron.