Jia Ruiling’s* father has been in severe pain since March 17th. He has late-stage stomach cancer, but his hospital refused to treat him because Jia’s Shanghai neighborhood was under lockdown due to a handful of Covid cases.
“We kept begging the hospital to take him in,” Jia said. “At one point my father was in so much pain that he wanted to take his own life. What can we do? Please help us inform the central government.”
China’s strict zero-Covid policy means all positive cases must be hospitalized. But in recent weeks, as case numbers have soared and 26 million people have entered a tough lockdown, mainland China’s main financial hub has ground to a halt. The number of new daily positive cases exceeded 10,000 for the first time on Monday. Although 38,000 health workers have been sent in from across China to help, medical resources are mostly being diverted to fighting Covid, making it difficult for non-Covid patients like Jia’s father to access them.
Luo Ruixiang*, a 39-year-old Chinese worker in the Republic of Congo, had a similar experience. He flew home in March hoping for urgent treatment after injuring his left eye.
People with mild and asymptomatic cases of Covid will be quarantined at the Shanghai New International Expo Center on April 1. Photo: Ding Ting/AP
An officer in personal protective equipment walks across an empty street in the Yangpu district of Shanghai. Photo: AFP/Getty ImagesHe landed in Shanghai and informed his quarantine hotel and customs officials of his medical needs, but heard nothing for more than a week. “I was concerned that if I had waited until the quarantine was over, I would have already gone blind,” he said.
Desperate, Luo went to the social media site Weibo to ask for help. Local media soon called him and medical help was quickly on its way. “Luckily, the operation is complete,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be that complicated, but as a little potato everything is so difficult for me.”
A medical worker carries out Covid tests in Shanghai’s Changning district. Photo: Xinhua/Rex/ShutterstockThe Omicron outbreak in Shanghai is the biggest test yet of China’s zero-Covid policy and the city is struggling. On Monday, health officials reported 8,581 asymptomatic and 425 symptomatic cases over the past 24 hours. The numbers are small compared to countries like the UK and US, but they are among the largest in China since the virus was first reported in Wuhan in late 2019.
Critics say the city, one of China’s most modern, should have been better prepared. “They’ve been too successful since 2020, so they got complacent,” Jia said, stressing that she wasn’t anti-government but that her father’s suffering made her “very angry.”
“Both the virus and people are changing,” said Chen Xi, a public health expert at the Yale School of Public Health. “It is the first time that the sub-variant of Omicron, i.e. BA.2, hits Shanghai. The unprecedented speed of rapid spread is outpacing contact tracing and other traditional public health measures. People have pronounced Covid fatigue even after more than two years of strict health measures.”
Helpless and frustrated
As the lockdown continues in China’s largest metropolis, the sense of helplessness is overwhelming. Photos and videos showing young children being separated from their parents at a Shanghai hospital caused anger on social media over the weekend. A parent whose toddler was taken away after testing positive wrote on social media, “I’m so upset… This is inhumane.”
Several Shanghai-based EU diplomats sent a letter to the city government on March 31 urging them to help their citizens when they needed medical assistance. They also urged Shanghai not to separate children from their parents “whatever the circumstances.”
Shanghai health officials defended the policy Monday as parents and guardians vented their anger on social media. Wu Qianyu, an official with the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, said the policy is an essential part of efforts to prevent and control the virus.
Responding to complaints, Ma Chunlei, secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal Government, admitted on Friday that his government had handled the outbreak poorly. “Our awareness of the highly infectious and insidious Omicron mutant strain was insufficient, and our preparation for the significant increase in infections was not comprehensive,” he said. “We sincerely accept your criticism and work hard to improve it.”
People peer over a cordon of a cordoned-off area in Shanghai on March 26. Photo: Aly Song/ReutersDespite the confession, some say things still haven’t improved. Deng Zhaoyang*’s wife and three-year-old son have been in a government-run quarantine facility since March 29. “The facility is run by volunteers and nobody seems to be in charge. So much so that we don’t even know when they will leave the facility, nor did anyone go to do Covid tests for them,” he said.
Deng, who immigrated to the city as an adult years ago, said that in recent years when things have been normal and other parts of China have been struggling with outbreaks, he never thought the same thing would happen in Shanghai.
“Before Omicron arrived, it was understandable that those who got it should be sent to quarantine facilities,” he said. “But now most of them only have mild symptoms. Shouldn’t the government adjust its policies accordingly?”
The sense of frustration is shared by some of the city’s medics. In a revealing phone call last week that made rounds online at home and abroad, an official with China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Shanghai said the city’s medical resources were under severe strain.
A man delivers food to people under quarantine on the Puxi side of Shanghai. Photo: Alex Plavevski/EPA“I already suggested it [to higher officials] on multiple occasions that those with mild or no symptoms should simply be quarantined at home,” she said, adding that the current effort to combat the virus is more about politics. “But who was listening to me?” Some Chinese netizens, however, labeled them “fake” and “dangerous.” On Saturday, the Shanghai Pudong CDC said it was investigating the caller’s complaint. It also issued an internal notice urging staff answering the hotline to speak with one voice.
It is so important for other regions in China to learn and reinforce vaccinations before the local surge begins
Chen Xi
On the same day, during an official visit to Shanghai, Sun Chunlan, a Chinese vice premier, stressed “unwavering adherence to the dynamic zero-Covid approach,” according to Xinhua. Less than 24 hours later, the Chinese military dispatched more than 2,000 medics to Shanghai to support efforts to contain the spread of the virus.
“Not sustainable”
Jin Dong-yan, a professor at Hong Kong University’s Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, said it will take weeks for the virus to be under control. “Even if they can reach zero Covid at extremely high cost, one more accident could cause another big spike… Living with the virus is the only viable option,” he said.
A big part of “living with the virus” has to do with an effective vaccine. Officials have started speaking openly about mRNA vaccines in recent months, an indication that authorities may have considered rolling out vaccines other than the Chinese-made Sinopharm and Sinovac. dr Zhong Nanshan, the country’s top respiratory expert, said in December that China should learn about the good things in other countries, such as mRNA vaccines. The Shanghai government said in an official document last week that it supports imports of vaccines and Covid treatment drugs.
“Use of rapid antigen tests [RAT] and approval of mRNA vaccines are both feasible given the extensive data they have [the authorities] mRNA vaccine as well as sufficient capacity to mass-produce RAT,” Chen said, adding that both low vaccination rates among older adults and the vaccine technology used in China are “of concern.”
“The remaining window of time is shrinking rapidly,” he said. “It’s so important for other regions in China to learn and ramp up vaccinations before the local surge begins.”
A man stands behind the fence at the quarantined compound in Puxi. Photo: Alex Plavevski/EPAFor Jia, the idea of living with the virus seems far away. She just hopes that her father will be taken to his cancer hospital as soon as possible. “His pain has been relieved with higher doses of painkillers in recent days, but this is not a sustainable solution. He needs to see a doctor,” she said.
Since revealing her father’s ordeal online last week, Jia said she has received media attention. Perhaps because of the pressure, her local county authorities had called her to say they could send her father to the hospital.
“They had a requirement, though,” she said. “They wanted me to delete my social media posts first. I declined. They didn’t manage to send my father to the cancer hospital in the end because they’re just a county agency and they couldn’t convince a city facility after all.”
* Names have been changed to protect identities