Shanghai fences up Covid-hit areas, fuelling fresh outcry

Shanghai fences up Covid-hit areas, fuelling fresh outcry

Reuters / Shanghai

Shanghai authorities battling an outbreak of Covid-19 have erected fences outside residential buildings, sparking fresh public outcry over a lockdown that has forced much of the city’s 25mn people indoors.

The largest district in Beijing, meanwhile, will require everyone living or working in the area to take three Covid tests this week, and put more than a dozen buildings under lockdown, after the Chinese capital reported 22 new cases for Saturday.

The district, Chaoyang, is home to 3.45mn people.

In Shanghai, images of workers in white hazmat suits sealing entrances of housing blocks and closing off entire streets with green fencing — roughly two metres tall — went viral on social media, prompting questions and complaints from residents.

“This is so disrespectful of the rights of the people inside, using metal barriers to enclose them like domestic animals,” said one user on social media platform Weibo. One video showed residents shouting from balconies at workers trying to set up fencing.

The workers relented and took it away.

Other videos showed people trying to pull fences down. “Isn’t this a fire hazard?” asked another Weibo user. Many of the fences were erected around compounds designated “sealed areas” — buildings where at least