Commentary on Political Economy

Tuesday 5 April 2022

 SERVES THIS FUCKING SLUT WELL THAT SHE IS STUCK IN A CHINESE VIRUS HELL!

OH..."I LOVE SHANGHAI"

WELL, MAY YOU DIE IN ITS RAT FILTH THEN, YOU EFFING BITCH!


The bleak reality of Xi Jinping’s ‘Covid-zero’ policy

Inside the Shanghai International Expo Centre: there are almost 4000 people in this giant Covid quarantine station. Picture: Jane Polubotko
Inside the Shanghai International Expo Centre: there are almost 4000 people in this giant Covid quarantine station. Picture: Jane Polubotko

No showers. Barely any soap. And squat portable toilets.

“It is one of the most difficult parts about staying here. Yeah, they clean it … But they’re just not suitable for many people for a long time,” Jane Polubotko says on her seventh night at Shanghai’s International Expo Centre.

There are almost 4000 people in this giant Covid quarantine ­station. None has been told what the criteria are for leaving – or where they are off to next.

“There’s no official communication about that. Every day, there are different rumours,” says Ms Polubotko, a marketing executive.

China’s biggest and most cosmopolitan city – home of 26 million people – is in its first week of a citywide lockdown of startling severity.

Shanghai is recording almost 10,000 new cases a day of the highly infectious Covid Omicron sub-variant BA. 2, according to ­official numbers, and Beijing has demanded city officials do whatever it takes to eliminate the largest outbreak in China since Wuhan more than two years ago.

Almost 40,000 healthcare workers have been sent to Shanghai from around the country, ­including 2000 from the People’s Liberation Army.

The result is President Xi Jinping’s “Covid-zero” policy at its most blunt.

Babies who test positive, whatever their symptoms, are being taken from parents and put into crowded Covid hospitals.

Tens of thousands of people – the exact number is unclear – have been sent to gymnasiums, apartment blocks and other ­venues. Most have asymptomatic or mild cases.

The cavernous expo centre is one of the better ones.

“We have these little borders around our beds,” says Ms Polubotko, who is from Ukraine and came to China in 2013 to study and then to work. “I’ve seen some of the videos where they don’t even have those borders.”

Jane Polubotko.
Jane Polubotko.
Elizabeth Liu and her husband in happier times.
Elizabeth Liu and her husband in happier times.

The fluorescent lights at the expo centre never go off. Ear plugs are recommended for anyone trying to sleep. Toilet paper is available only on request.

There are no showers, but each new arrival is issued a bucket and cloth if they want to wash.

Shanghai’s lockdown is many orders tougher than any lockdown implemented in Australia.

Only medicos and emergency food delivery people can leave their front doors. Everyone else is completely housebound, unless summoned for a Covid test, or sent to quarantine centre or a hospital.

People around China are looking on with dread.

“People are way more afraid of the measures than of Covid,” says Elizabeth Liu, a longtime Shanghai resident who moved to China from the US in 2005.

There was outrage last week when a nurse died from an asthma attack after being denied entry to the hospital at which she worked. Days later, as Shanghai’s health officials were apologising for her fatal denial of care, outrage erupted over videos showing infants in crowded cots.

The mother of a hospitalised two-year-old told the Chinese masthead Caixin that local government officials said she was not allowed to see her child.

She said she had since received little communication from the clinic’s medical staff about her daughter’s condition.

Ms Liu, who is quarantined at her home with her husband Daniel and four children, 12, 10, 7 and 2, says the government’s new rules are terrifying.

“If your child is between seven and 18 and they are positive but the parents are not, then they will go to the centralised quarantine hell-hole without a parent,” she says.

“And if they are under seven, they’ll go to a hospital with nobody who knows them – just to be kept in an overcrowded hospital.”

Shanghai is China’s most international city, with the biggest group of expats in the country. Their numbers have dwindled as the pandemic has continued.

Many more scrambled to get out before Shanghai was ordered into a full lockdown at the weekend.

A WeChat group called “Get out of China ASAP” was full of tips for how to get the necessary approvals to make it to the airport.

Ms Liu, her Singaporean husband and four children are leaving for the US in the new year.

“It’s such a shame. We adore Shanghai … But I just think the ­direction Shanghai is moving in is not something we agree with or can really handle anymore,” she says.

Ms Polubotko and her partner are also preparing to leave ­Shanghai.

But for now, she is focused on getting out of the expo centre, where she was delivered last Monday after a ride in an ambulance and bus.

Days earlier, she went to a hospital for a Covid test after having feverish symptoms.

Those symptoms ended more than a week ago. So have those of her partner, who is still at home in their apartment.

He was told by health authorities days ago that he was also off to a quarantine facility and should pack his bags, but the ambulance has still not arrived.

“It’s not clear what will happen to him,” Ms Polubotko says.

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