Workers in white head-to-toe nails erected wire fences and metal sheets to block roads, residential communities and even the entrances of some apartment buildings. The majority of the city’s 25 million residents had already been prevented from leaving their homes during a month of blockade, although some neighborhoods have since opened. Obstacles are developed to ensure traffic control and often leave only a small entrance that can be easily guarded. IS THE USE OF METAL FENCING OR BARRIERS NEW? The barriers are new to Shanghai, but have spread throughout the pandemic to other cities across China. For example, in early 2020, some neighborhood committees – the lower echelon of local government – erected metal sheets and fences in parts of Beijing to monitor access points to homes. Wuhan, where the first COVID-19 cases were reported in December 2019, also erected metal barriers throughout the city. The way they are developed varies. Sometimes the government sets up fences around entire neighborhood blocks, leaving only one or two entrances. In other cases they build fences in front of individual residential complexes. Fencing has also been widely developed in border areas, including Suifenhe, a city in the northeast bordering Russia. The metal dams there block entire roads. WHY PEOPLE PROTEST IN SHANGHAI? Shanghai had not raised large-scale metal barriers in the last two years of the pandemic, boasting of more targeted non-lockdown-based measures. This changed in the last outbreak, which is due to the highly contagious variant omicron BA.2. Authorities in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Many Shanghai residents were upset by the barriers closing the entrances to their apartment buildings and some angry citizens posted videos on the internet protesting. In an AP-verified video, residents leaving a building in Shanghai’s Xuhui district broke a barbed wire fence at the front entrance and angrily searched for the guard they believed was responsible for placing. Shanghai uses a staggered system in which neighborhoods are divided into three categories based on transmission risk. Those in the first category face the strictest COVID-19 controls and are the main target of the barriers. However, some Shanghai neighborhood officials have put up barricades in areas that do not belong to the strictest category. A resident called the police to protest the closure of roads near his apartment building, saying that his house does not belong to the first category. He and two other residents in his building complex tried to prevent the workers from setting up the metal barriers, but were stopped by an employee of the neighborhood committee. The police officer told the residents that they were not allowed to leave the apartment, according to the man’s account, which he posted on WeChat. “It’s a deep, deep feeling of helplessness. Who can tell me: “Is there any hope for this place?” He wrote. He refused to be named. WILL THEY DOWNLOAD? In some cases, the residents were successful in their protests. In an apartment complex in Shanghai’s Putuo district, residents protested violently after the housing committee put a U-lock on the door of their building on April 16. “It was very sudden, without any warning, and it was not just the building. Each place was blocked from below. “She closed all escape routes,” said a Shanghai resident who asked to be identified only by her last name, Zhang. “If there was an accident or a fire, everyone is sure to die.” Residents of the building called the police as well as the city telephone line. The housing committee retreated and put tape on the door, but warned residents that the destruction of the tape would have legal consequences, according to a notice the commission sent to residents that Zhang showed to the AP. In Beijing, many obstacles have been removed after the city went without a major epidemic in the last two years. Now, however, residential complexes with positive cases are once again entering roadblocks. —- Associated Press researcher Chen Si contributed to this report from Shanghai.
