Last week, Shanghai, China went into hard lockdown, what lockdown-lovers call a “real” lockdown. Home to 25 million souls, Shanghai is China’s premier city, its version of New York City, the communist nation’s showcase of Chinese technology, architecture, and most importantly, government. Last week, after watching cases escalate since March 1, the government imposed a set of strict lockdown rules that by the end of the week involved the city’s residents being locked — in some cases literally — in their apartments, unable to leave even for food or water.
Water is a particularly pressing problem, since the tap water in Shanghai is not fit to drink even after boiling due to the presence of heavy metals. Food can only be obtained through a phone app. The system of private suppliers broke down after only a few days, not least because of limiting rules and per-delivery testing requirements for delivery staff, and so the government took over midstream with an entirely new smartphone-powered food-delivery system. All residents must pay for their food, which when it is delivered is almost never what was ordered, but appears to be only what is available.
The lockdown rules are being enforced by soldiers from the ironically-named People’s Liberation Army, gangs of red-shirted “volunteers” who act more like roving brigands, and dystopian technology like drones with facial recognition that dock residents’ social credit scores and debit their bank accounts when residents are caught out on their balconies.
Widespread reports from Shanghai strongly suggest that large numbers of people are unable to reliably obtain food and water. In addition to being locked into their homes — in some cases physically locked in their buildings — residents are forced to exit whenever ordered for mandatory Covid testing. Those who test positive, including babies as young as one or two months old, are sent to prison-like quarantine facilities. Parents aren’t allowed to go with their quarantined children, no matter how young the child or infant might be.
Later in the week the government began seizing household pets, cats and dogs, summarily euthanizing animals whose owners are found Covid positive.
One horrifying video shows a poorly-trained government agent administering a Covid test to an infant, apparently penetrating the nasal cavity with the test stick too far, and the infant immediately dies. Other videos show government agents beating small dogs to death with their owners crying out for them to stop from behind locked apartment building doors. Another viral video showed sacks of house cats thrown into a garbage pile on the sidewalk, with many of the cats obviously still alive, struggling to move as best they could and mewing plaintively.
Shanghai residents are literally begging for food online. In this harrowing video, they can be heard screaming out of their windows:
Twitter avatar for
@DrEricDingEric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDingResidents in
#Shanghai screaming from high rise apartments after 7 straight days of the city lockdown. The narrator worries that there will be major problems. (in Shanghainese dialect—he predicts people can’t hold out much longer—he implies tragedy).
Image
Not just residents. US Marines. Yesterday, Reuters ran a story headlined, “U.S. Consulate Staff in China Help Marines Running Low on Rations.” According to Reuters, a U.S. consulate employee — acting in their individual capacity — posted this message to WeChat, the Chinese version of Facebook: “Marines have depleted their food and can no longer get delivery. I know we are all running short on supplies. If you can spare a meal’s worth or two for 7 extra mouths, they’d be very appreciative.”
If US military personnel can’t get food, imagine what it must be like for an ordinary Shanghai resident.
But our revolting corporate media has — for some reason — completely blacked out the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Shanghai.