“Our main daily concern is access to water and food”, says David Iosub on Monday April 18 at franceinfo. This Frenchman, who has been living in China for 17 years, has been confined since April 1 with his wife and son in the old town of Shanghai, where the “zero Covid” policy is applied.
franceinfo: What are your days like?
David Iosub: We don’t really see the weekends, every day is alike. We’re waiting to see if we can get out, we’re waiting to see the news. Our main daily concern is access to water and food. We had made a few small reserves between the two periods of confinement, at the beginning of the month, but it is not eternal. We receive, once a week, a basket with some food from the local government.
“The day before yesterday, we received a small basket with two oranges, three apples, two carrots, two potatoes, two tomatoes, three packets of freeze-dried noodles, a small bag with sausages, two rolls of toilet paper. is three.”
David Iosubat franceinfo
We may have another delivery but for the moment we have not received anything else for this week, knowing that the deliveries made by courier in the city have been canceled, so we have very very few others means of receiving food and even water.
You are not allowed to go out at all?
There are three levels of containment in Shanghai. There is a strict standard for residences where there have been cases of Covid-19: residents have two weeks plus a week to wait hoping that there are no new cases. It’s strict confinement, they can’t leave their homes except to do the tests. Category two: if for two weeks there have been zero cases in the residence, you can go out in the common areas for a week, you continue to be tested but you still cannot leave your residence. The third category – in which I am – we spent three weeks with zero cases in our residence so we have the technical right to leave our residence. That said, the neighborhood committee prevents people from going out, saying that it is more reasonable not to do so and that, in any case, all the shops, all the stores are closed. They try to dissuade us from going out. We managed to get out once or twice.
“They tell us that you risk catching Covid-19 when you leave your house and if you catch Covid-19, you put the whole residence back in category 1 – strict confinement.”
David Iosubat franceinfo
With the risk also, if you test positive, of being sent to these kind of regrouping camps for Covid-19 cases that everyone wants to avoid because we see on television that these are not very pleasant conditions. .
>> Covid-19: “We can’t even see if it’s day or night”, testifies a Frenchman locked up in a “quarantine camp” in Shanghai
Our journalist on site reports scenes of revolts in Shanghai. Are the locals starting to get fed up?
There is frustration because people are starting to realize that most of the people who are sent to these centers are asymptomatic. Currently, we have the Omicron variant, it is very contagious but there are very few deaths. We are, all over China, at less than 10 deaths in the last three months so it is really a level of risk that is low. People who are positive and sent to these centers are asymptomatic, they don’t really understand what the problem is and think that they could stay at home, that they would be safer there because they could take their medications. hey had health problems, whereas when they arrived in these camps, the conditions were much more Spartan.
“In 17 years, I have never seen this, residents getting angry with authority.”
David Iosubat franceinfo
There is a fed up, especially in very large residences. Where I live, there are about 30 of us, but in the residences where there are 2,000 or 3,000 people, the probability that there is a person who has Covid-19 and who hands over all of residence in strict confinement is much more important. Therefore, there is a misunderstanding. In some residences that didn’t have a case and where suddenly there is one, the residents wonder if it’s coming from the deliveries or the pets, so they start creating hysteria. People start imagining preposterous reasons and that’s what creates these tensions.