Image: ALEX PLAVEVSKI/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Residents of the Chinese city woke up to 2-metre high fences outside – and they can’t even leave their homes without Covid.
China has imposed the world’s strictest lockdown on its citizens, trapping them inside their own homes.
Chinese authorities installed green fences overnight in Shanghai to restrict people’s movement during the city’s worst Coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began.
In a sealed area surrounded by fences, those with the virus cannot leave their properties.
Twenty-five million residents of Shanghai have been confined to their homes for weeks because of the Covid outbreak, which reached 21,000 new cases on Sunday (April 24). On that day, 39 people in the city died from the virus.
Social media has been filled with pictures of officers in white hazmat suits patrolling the city and closing off certain areas with green fencing.
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Shanghai’s citizens have already been pushed to their limits by the lockdown, as babies and small children have already been separated from their parents.
The latest initiative has resulted in two-metre-high, green fences being built to create ‘sealed’ areas around buildings where at least one person has tested positive for Covid.
Residents were shocked to discover the fences when they woke up because they had no idea about the new rule.
The BBC spoke to a foreign national who said a green fence appeared around his residential complex just a few days ago.
Apparently, the main gate into the complex was chained up three weeks ago after a neighbour caught the virus, according to him.
“There is a long corridor in our compound, and within the long corridor they put up another green fence three days ago. No one told us the reason it was installed,” the man told the BBC, wanting to stay anonymous.
“No one can get out. I feel helpless. You don’t know when the lockdown is going to end.
“If your area gets fenced off, what if a fire breaks out? I don’t think anyone in their right mind can seal people’s homes.”
Chris PC, director of documentaries in China, explained what local residents were saying via Twitter.
He wrote: “We all have heard stories of residents and even entire buildings refusing to go outside for mass testing. Some are fatigued, others fear that being together brings infection risks“.
“Some think sealed-off entrances like this are to separate these folks. The hope is that other residents of a community would not be punished for the lack of co-operation from a few. This might be wishful thinking.”
“It’s usually extremely crowded on sunny weekend afternoons. To see these fences up with little official explanation is confusing a lot of people.”
China has a zero-Covid policy, which aims to eradicate the virus from the country. Shanghai’s super strict rules are part of the policy.
Covid infections in the country were quite low at the beginning of the pandemic, but they have increased as variants became more transmissible.
