Shanghai raised metal barriers in different parts of the city to enforce the strict confinement due to COVID-19

Shanghai police have erected metal barriers in multiple districts to block small streets and entrances to apartment complexes, while China's regime tightens its strict “zero COVID” approach.

In the city's financial district, Pudong, barriers, whether thin sheets of metal or mesh fences, were placed in several neighborhoods under a local government directive, according to Caixin, a Chinese commercial media outlet. Buildings where positive cases have been found sealed their main entrances, with a small opening for pandemic prevention workers to pass through.

China reported 21,796 new community-borne COVID-19 infections on Sunday, with the vast majority being asymptomatic cases in Shanghai. Across the country, many cities and provinces have imposed some version of a lockdown in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

The latest outbreak, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, has spread throughout the country, but it has been particularly large in Shanghai. The city, a financial center with 25 million residents, has counted hundreds of thousands of cases but fewer than 100 deaths since the outbreak began almost two months ago.

A PA examination of the death toll found that despite a history of narrow criteria for linking deaths to particular diseases, especially COVID-19, authorities have changed the way they count positive cases, leading to room for maneuver in how they reach a final death count. The result is almost certainly an insufficient count of the true death toll.

On social media, people posted videos of the new barriers that were placed on Saturday, and expressed their anger at the measures.

In a video, verified by the AP, residents leaving a building in Shanghai's Xuhui district broke the mesh barricade at its main entrance and went to find the security guard they believed responsible for setting it up.

Shanghai is using a tiered system in which neighborhoods are divided into three categories based on their risk of transmission. Those in the first category face the strictest controls of COVID-19 and were the main target of the new intensified measures. In the third category, some buildings allow people to leave their homes and visit public areas.

In Shanghai, authorities reported 39 new deaths from COVID-19, raising the official death toll to 4,725 by the end of Saturday, the National Health Commission said Sunday.

The confinement of the city has attracted worldwide attention due to its strict approach and dangerous consequences. Many residents of the city have struggled to procure groceries, resorting to bartering and buying in bulk. Others have not been able to obtain adequate medical care in time, due to strict controls on movement.

On Friday, Chinese netizens shared a six-minute video called “Voices of April” that documents some of the most challenging public moments the city has experienced in the nearly month-long lockdown. One part presents the audio of residents of a Shanghai community who protested on April 8, shouting: “Send us food! Send us food! Send us food!” in unison.

The video covered WeChat timelines before it was abruptly removed by censors on Saturday.

Chinese authorities have continued to say that the “zero COVID” strategy is the best way forward given the low vaccination rates among people over 60, and that omicron would result in many deaths and serious illnesses if the country ended its strict approach.

(with information from AP)

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