Chinese police use force to implement quarantine rules in Shanghai
Issued on:
A video that has been circulating since May 1 on Chinese social networks shows police officers in white sanitary suits breaking down the door of an apartment in Shanghai to take one of the residents to a quarantine centre. The video reflects the chaos generated by China's "zero Covid" policy in the city of 26 million residents, under lockdown since the end of march 2022.
Shanghai's 26 million residents have been on lockdown since April 5, 2022, under very strict conditions: residents are confined to their homes, receive their food through deliveries organised by the authorities, and can only go out to undergo PCR tests. People who test positive are sent to quarantine centres.
In a video that went viral on social media, police officers pound on the locked door of an apartment and then break it down when the two residents refuse to open up. The officers were there to take one of the apartment's residents to a Covid-19 quarantine centre, after she allegedly tested positive for the virus.
But, according to our Observer, a resident of the same building, many people try to avoid these quarantine centres, infamous for poor conditions.
Because the conditions in these facilities tend to be poor (lights on 24/7, no privacy, poor sanitary facilities, for example, no running water for showers), people try to avoid going because in many cases, they recover by themselves in a few days.
The issue is lack of due process and clarity over the rules. And in general, there is this atmosphere of randomness and uncertainty, where things are carried without clear legal basis. You don’t know what the rules are and even if you do know, it doesn’t seem to matter, because it’s all down to the individual people enforcing the actions when they come for you.
The situation is extremely frustrating because people have always been happy to comply, but there's no communication, there's no process.