Residents under Covid lockdowns in areas across China are complaining of shortages of food and essential items.
Tens of millions of people in at least 30 regions have been ordered to stay at home under partial or full lockdowns.
“It’s been 15 days, we are out of flour, rice, eggs. From days ago, we run out of milk for kids,” said one resident in western Xinjiang.
Authorities are scrambling to contain local outbreaks ahead of the Communist party’s congress in October.
China’s zero-Covid policy requires strict lockdowns – even if just a handful of cases are reported. On Monday China recorded 949 new Covid cases across the entire country.
of restrictions earlier this year.
Its 21 million people have been banned from entering or leaving the city, with only residents able to show evidence of a negative Covid test allowed out to buy necessities.
It follows a major heatwave in the region and an earthquake earlier this month which saw residents trying to flee their homes confronted by locked exits.
City officials say they are planning to lift restrictions in five areas of the city starting on Monday.
The multiple extended lockdowns come ahead of the National Party Congress in mid-October – a once-in-five-years event that will see top political members gather for the first time since the pandemic struck.
Party officials are under immense pressure to makes sure the event runs smoothly, and even small clusters of Covid are seen as a threat.
On Monday Chinese media said small numbers of cases were being detected on university campuses in Beijing as students returned from other provinces.
It is the world’s last major economy attempting to entirely stamp out Covid outbreaks, claiming this is necessary to prevent wider surges of the virus which could overwhelm hospitals.
China has officially recorded fewer than 15,000 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Source: BBC
