World News: Covid-shaming pits neighbour against neighbour in locked-down Shanghai – Gulf Digital News

World News: Covid-shaming pits neighbour against neighbour in locked-down Shanghai – Gulf Digital News

SHANGHAI: The tensions of lockdown have exposed divisions among Shanghai residents, pitting young against old, locals against outsiders, and above all, Covid-negative against Covid-positive people.

Shanghai's 25 million people, most of whom live in apartment blocks, have forged new communal bonds during the city's coronavirus outbreak, through barter and group buying and setting up food-sharing stations.

But with no end in sight to a lockdown that for some has lasted four weeks, frustrations are also mounting behind the shuttered gates of the city's tower blocks, often playing out within WeChat message groups.

In one, conflict erupted when a woman who had been taken to centralised quarantine - where she tested negative - accused her neighbour of reporting her to authorities.

It is not unusual for test results to be shared and positive cases announced in building WeChat groups, as authorities try to get to grips with China's largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019.

One US citizen was told she would be sent to a quarantine centre after results from a mixed test, including hers, came back positive last week, sparking panic. Three others whose samples were in the batch were taken to quarantine, but her own at-home tests