25M Shanghai Residents Face Food Shortage Amid COVID Lockdown

The effort to stamp out COVID-19 in Shanghai has taken on the characteristics of a military campaign. The army has published photos of planes offloading personnel and supplies. Tens of thousands of medical workers have marched into the city, The Economist reported.

Photo Insert: China seems hell-bent on sticking to its zero-COVID strategy.

At least as many COVID patients will be spirited out and brought to field hospitals in neighboring areas or sometimes hundreds of kilometers away. The rest of the city’s 25-million residents will remain locked down as the fight against the virus drags on.

Yet, the city’s teeming millions are raging as food becomes scarce and a corps of 11,000 motorcycle-riding delivery men could not provide meat, fish, and vegetable to a population now disgruntled with the clumsy handling of the crisis.

Supply is limited, with stocks depleted in seconds, furious residents said. Medicines are also scarce. Pets left behind by those downed by the virus have been killed for fear they might spread COVID, raising outrage among residents.

For two years, China’s business and finance hub remained relatively unscathed by COVID. Shanghai was evidence of the government’s skillful handling of the pandemic.

The country’s “zero-Covid” approach, involving mass testing and strict lockdowns to crush outbreaks, led to fewer deaths and stronger economic growth than in other big countries.

President Xi Jinping has hailed the strategy as a great success—and proof that China’s socialist system is superior to Western democracy. The current experience of Shanghai disproves the haughty claim.

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