Residents under lockdown in Shanghai say they are running out of food, amid the city’s biggest ever Covid outbreak.
Residents are confined to their homes, banned from leaving for even essential reasons such as grocery shopping.
Almost 20,000 cases were reported on Wednesday in Shanghai, China’s biggest city – marking a new national record.
Officials have admitted that the city is facing “difficulties” but say they are trying to improve this.
In recent weeks the city had quarantined certain compounds. Last week, officials implemented a staggered lockdown where the city was split into two and each half had separate measures.
But on Monday the lockdown was extended indefinitely, and it now covers the entire city of 25 million people.
Strict rules mean most people have to order in food and water. But the surge in cases and the lockdown extension have overwhelmed delivery services and grocery shop websites.
Many locals have vented their frustrations online, saying that in some areas of the city, they’ve been left completely unable to order any food or water supplies. The government is also delivering supplies but there have been delays, residents say.
Many delivery personnel are also in locked-down areas, leading to an overall decrease in delivery capacity.
“Please solve the problem of insufficient delivery capacity as soon as possible,” one user wrote on social media site Weibo in response to city officials’ video message.
Another person wrote that it was the “first time in my life that I have gone hungry”.
Day 17 of my Shanghai Covid lockdown and food remains the priority
As usual, I woke up at 6am to try ordering deliveries
I have 10 apps that I cycle through repeatedly from various stores/platforms for several hours trying to find anything
No success by this method again today
Residents have also raised many other concerns including reports of price gouging, and worries over how elderly or less tech-savvy residents are surviving.
City officials acknowledged the food struggles on Wednesday, saying Shanghai had enough supplies of rice, noodles, grain, oil and meet but there were delays in distributing them.
“It is true there are some difficulties in ensuring the supply of daily necessities,” said Liu Min, the deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.
“Cross-provincial logistics have not been smooth due to the impact of the outbreak.”
At a news conference on Thursday, Shanghai’s vice mayor said the city would try to re-open some wholesale markets and food stores, and allow more delivery personnel out of locked-down areas.
“In response to the various problems reported by the public, we have been holding meetings overnight to try and figure out solutions,” said Chen Tong.
China is one of the last remaining nations still bent on eradicating any cases of the disease, in contrast to most of the world which is trying to live with the virus in its Omicron variation.
The country has successfully enacted full lockdowns before – which millions of people in several cities have endured – but Shanghai is its biggest city and the case spread this time is much higher than previous outbreaks.
As the economic powerhouse of China, Shanghai’s shutdown is also fuelling concerns about the impact to China and the world’s economy.
Source: BBC
