SHANGHAI COVID LOCKDOWN 2022 (1)

the initial panic buying 

 HOME TEST NUMBER?????

  

HAHA...NO

 at the start it was crazy. they separated kids from parents. throwing them all together. small babies and toddlers crying together confused and scared calling for their mothers. or pets being killed, some bludgeoned to death, the owners taken away to quarantine and the covid workers (xiao lan 小蓝 or dabai 大白 as they are known locally) would some times kill them, cruel and disgusting.  

thankfully due to social media these atrocities where quickly shared online (though also swiflly blocked and deleted) but it caused the authorities to make changes and for people to set up temporary rehoming for pets. (I spoke to an Indian couple recently who had their second son 2 days before the Puxi lockdown, he was jaundice and so needed to stay in hospital, due to the covid rules the parents couldn't either, then lockdown started. 2 months unale to be with their newborn!!!! omg. and the other son had been in pudong at a friends house when they suddenly got locked down. an utter nightmare. 2 children separated from the parents for 2 months. I am not yet a mother but the thought of it has my blood boiling)

SHANGHAI QUARANTINES

(by local Shanghai girl Victoria)

 we waited 

I simply couldn't make this any better... do you want to hear? ok, I'll start. 2. days ago at 11pm we were taken, very quickly, to the quarantine spot. [video1] There was already tens of buses waiting. everyone was wearing white PCP gear, sitting orderly in the waiting buses. from midnight to about 3am, some of the elders couldn't hold their bladders any longer, there was also an older man with a heart condition who needed his heart medication.

upon (finally) getting off the bus I went ahead to see how many buses were still left. [video2] when I got to the end of the road I discovered a huge formidable iron gate blocking all the vehicles on the road. I went towards the gate to look , as you can see (video 3) originally our formidable nation's constructors hadn't made the quarantine well and now it was unable to open.

and so the tens of buses full of positive cases where all still stuck waiting on the buses! although none of us had spoken together， all anyone wanted to do (apart from first get to the toilet) was to start yelling abuse and hate towards the country. 

time flies, and in a blink of an eye it was nearing 5am. the iron gate opened and the buses started to go in entering the construction site, like the construction workers we pretended not to see them or the strewn rubbish everywhere. We finally got off the bus, and praise the lord, there were toilets!

it was half constructed, with make-shift beds (deckchairs with blankets or plank beds) hastily thrown together in a night to become a quarantine. I went to find a toilet...

1000 people, one bathroom - a squat toilet and a seated one (western) they weren't connected to the water pipes, they couldn't be flushed. people had been using them, but unable to flush after. they were overflowing.....🤮

construction hadn't finished and so they hadn't had time to connect the toilet to the water pipes for them to be able to flush. looks like I won't be eating or drinking much here.... least I'll lose some weight 😅

they did send breakfast....very standard (as shown)

 

if you somehow managed to escape lockdown and flee to another city / province (like my roomate did) they had rules in place.....however they decided to change them halfway. so instead of getting too do a full 

quarantine at home, they took her to a quaratine. hers was bearable though. not thousands of people together. she was sent to a school set up as a makeshift QT (was there really any need though?)

the buildings had guards. they would tell us when we would get tested once they stop coming up to the homes individually and instead had us line up outside and test. ours were our security guards, in PCP gear, but there was usually someone who slept outside in a tent too...and still do if a place is locked down. they would occasionally take out the trash for us. but it wasn't daily or that often...it would start to accumlate outside our doors  

when it calmed down a bit they started coming up with crazy excuses and reasons...

and even after the city opened again we would still have random lockdowns. 10-14 days for positive cases. less if only a close contact. we got locked a couple times 

when you can't go to a hairdresser the hairdresser comes to you...but outside....

after the second month the government started organising a hairdresser to come to the different compounds and give haircuts to those who wanted/needed it. setting up a seat and cutting outside whilst dressed in full PCP gear. they had started doing in sneakily before that anyway. setting up seats on the streets and alleys haha. 

a slow return to freedom