There are more and more voices expressing concern, concern and disbelief as to what exactly might be happening in Shanghai.
The planet has already completed two years of pandemic. Vaccines, drugs and masks are valuable weapons in the quiver against the pandemic, allowing a relative return to normality. China's zero outbreak policy, however, is a game changer. It seems unconvincing, however, with several scientists wondering "if something else is going on....."
"Could there be a new mutation and they're not telling us? I hope it's the former, their culture, but it's very strange. But we don't need them, we have the tools to live with COVID," comments Panagios Galiatsatos - pulmonologist, intensivist professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. Nikos Tzanakis, Professor of Pulmonology at the University of Crete Medical School, expressed the view that this is an outbreak of the Omicron 2 mutation of the coronavirus and not something new. The National Organisation of Public Health (EODY) also issued a statement regarding the developments in Shanghai. As the National Public Health Service stresses, the existing data from China do not indicate the existence of a new variant of coronavirus or any other factor that raises concern about the course of the pandemic.
How, then, can one interpret the unprecedented quarantine imposed in Shanghai? It is this that has caused a mass exodus of foreign students and education workers, which has created enormous problems. Some of the city's best schools have been left without staff, announcing that their operation is practically impossible. Many consulates are taking care of procedures, trying to remove their citizens as quickly as possible.
But there are also tens of thousands of wealthy Chinese trying to escape this situation by travelling to Western countries. For them, the process is even more difficult.
At the same time, the first deaths from coronavirus were recorded in the city. In a statement, the Shanghai municipality clarified that the three patients who succumbed were elderly people with underlying diseases. Authorities in China have conducted more than 200 million tests in an effort to control the new outbreak of the pandemic, with tens of thousands of cases confirmed daily. Tensions are also running high in the buildings where tens of thousands of citizens have been confined for weeks. These are huge skyscrapers. The elderly residents are often the ones who call the authorities, reporting positive incidents. There are not a few times when these do not turn out to be true. However, the residents are forcibly removed and taken to the special quarantine areas that have been set up.
There, complaints of inhumane living conditions are becoming more and more frequent. The patients' beds are next to each other, without the necessary distances being observed. There are only four toilets for thousands of people. The doors and windows are open, with the cold penetrating the room. There are not enough sheets. Moreover, the lights in these huge halls are not switched off 24 hours a day and there is no hot water to wash. Their food is limited to a slice of bread and some rice. They have no access to medicines, vitamins, and more than a few people reconnect because they are around people who remain positive. As if that wasn't enough, those who get trapped are worried about the lives of their pets. These, left at home without food and water for dozens of days, are also considered lucky. Many dogs and pets are immediately euthanized by health authorities. Other citizens may have been spared from the specially designed rooms, but even with negative tests, the authorities locked them out of their homes. Helpless, they were left in hotels, which charged them double prices for both accommodation and food. As the days go by, the situation remains dystopian.
Westerners who experience it firsthand describe an unimaginable situation in which fundamental human rights are violated at every turn.
People are angry
Moreover, the authorities are keeping people in the dark. They refuse to give explanations or even a timetable for when this nightmare could end.
Source: protothema.gr
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