Brazilian DJ and influencer Luana Pinho, 34, spoke of desperation at the lockdown imposed by authorities in Shanghai, China to prevent the spread of Covid19. Even with three doses of the vaccine, the population remains confined and has not been out on the streets for 32 days, causing tension and even residents fleeing to the airport.
“Shanghai looks like a city at war, but without weapons. What we’re going through would make a great Hollywood series or movie,” she told O Globo newspaper.
Luana is locked at home with her boyfriend, a dog and two cats. At the end of March, the confirmation of two cases in the building where she lives meant that everyone was unable to leave the condominium for 19 days. The current ban has no end date.
The influencer said she has friends who haven’t been to the supermarket in 40 days and so far have only received a basic food basket from the government. There are two ways to make basic purchases: make the purchase through the Internet, where they are released at certain times of the day and there is a struggle to purchase, have to go to the site very early to get the essentials, or to collective participate purchases made by the condominiums.
The last time she DJed outside the home was on March 5th, where she DJed at a Brazilian party. Luana simply could not have imagined that a new quarantine would start in Shanghai the very next day. “Since March we have more than 600,000 infected people in Shanghai. The situation is out of control. But we’re vaccinated, what they’re doing doesn’t make sense,” he said.
She describes this new confinement as much worse due to the behavior of the Chinese authorities, including the separation of Covid19 infected parents from their children. “They sealed buildings and erected metal barriers to separate neighborhoods. The only people we see on the streets are volunteers who look like astronauts policing the citizens.”
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The DJ said some people managed to escape and claimed they were going to the hospital. “Foreigners are at a loss and scared. Some initially managed to escape by lying. They said they were going to a hospital and were actually on their way to the airport. A taxi there cost about R$3,000,” he said.
Luana participates in WhatsApp groups with Brazilians also living in Shanghai and says everyone is stressed and it’s only thanks to the neighbors that they haven’t gone hungry. “I hope they’re ashamed of what they’re doing to everyone here. It’s all very surreal,” he concludes.
China applies a policy called “Covid Zero” and imposes strict restrictions on the movement to control Covid19. Yesterday the country recorded 29,609 new cases of the disease, an average of 29,353 over the past seven days.