Amid the explosion of new Covid-19 cases in Shanghai, China, authorities have imposed a strict lockdown on the city. THE CNN RadioBrazilian professor at New York University Shanghai and Fundação Dom Cabral, Rodrigo Zeidan, who lives in the region, said that “the force of the lockdown took us by surprise.”
“We couldn’t prepare much, on March 27, supermarkets and food stores closed, and the people on the other side of the river that cuts through the city cleaned up, there was nothing left,” he said. However, the professor reinforces that “there is no shortage of food, but we do not eat what we want, the most affected are even the poorest.”
He reports that he has been able to make purchases in large quantities, such as kilos of fruit, and most of the time he counts on the solidarity of his neighbors. “We got salt, we gave it to a neighbor who was desperate, they also shared apples with us. There was a neighbor who made a stall and went out selling the unit, we thought we were kind of left behind, we are cariocas, it’s nothing that surprises us; on average, neighbors help a lot,” he said.
The professor, who went through restrictions in Brazil and Spain during the pandemic, considers the Chinese lockdown to be heavier: “We can’t easily get food, with supermarkets closed, the level of dissatisfaction is high, people understand why they don’t want the virus, but that’s the problem, China is not a centralized place.”
“The rules come from the city, but the districts and communities that must enforce the rules, there are districts in which the building has not had a case for 15 days, but the condominium manager does not want anyone to leave, they are almost going to court to have right to leave and there are others who follow the rules, it is very heterogeneous”, he said.
According to the rules in force, it is possible to go to the streets after 14 days without active cases in the community. Rodrigo and his family are on the fourth day of lockdown. For the Brazilian, the virulence of the Ômicron variant, combined with the delay he attributes to the Chinese government, are the causes for the outbreak of Covid-19 cases in Shanghai, the first in two years.
Source: CNN Brasil
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