Covid-19: In Shanghai, residents rebel against drastic measures


Sébastien Le Belzic (in Beijing) and Nina Droff, edited by Juline Garnier
modified to

12:33 p.m., April 19, 2022

REPORT

Are the Chinese authorities losing control? According to the latest Covid count, Shanghai has ten dead. A surprisingly light assessment for the most populous city in China and which counts 20,000 new cases every day, the worst epidemic outbreak since the start of the crisis. A drastic containment has been put in place, with exit bans, the closure of public places and requisitioned accommodation in quarantine centers. From one end of the megalopolis to the other, scenes of revolt by exasperated inhabitants are emerging everywhere.

In a video broadcast on the Chinese social network WeChat, we see dozens of people confronting police officers equipped with shields and dressed in full protective suits. Screams pierce the streets of the confined city. The inhabitants refuse to have their accommodation requisitioned and transformed into a quarantine center. Because throughout the city, exhibition centers, gymnasiums, offices and even apartment buildings are thus transformed into isolation centers, with more than 200,000 beds.

“We are really prisoners of this place”

Many residents say they lack food. Among them, more than 7,000 French people, like Mathieu Laurent, confined to his home with his 2-year-old daughter and his wife about to give birth. He absolutely wants to leave the city. “We are really prisoners of this place for the moment. It really feels like, when you know a little about the history of China, to return to the cultural revolution. And you say to yourself: let’s get the hell out of here as soon as possible. possible”, he says at the microphone of Europe 1.

Catherine, Franco-Scottish, also entrusts an unbreathable daily life. “The first few days, there was no delivery, we couldn’t get it delivered. But for maybe a week now, it’s been much better. We manage to get it delivered quite easily, we have the essentials We are sometimes tested twice during the day. Obligation to do the self-test in the morning with the PCR test in the afternoon”, explains the expatriate.

“It’s hard to know what that rhymes with. It’s test, on test, on test. And then, we don’t really see when we will be able to get out”, adds- she. It is currently impossible to leave. Roads are closed, the army has been deployed in the city and drones are patrolling between skyscrapers to remind residents not to shout out of windows. Scenes that are repeated throughout the country. 373 million people are confined, i.e. a quarter of the population.





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