Chinese senior residents, who have not been vaccinated like essential workers, risk living in poor conditions in badly maintained quarantine facilities as cases in Shanghai continue to soar.
Shanghai has remained under lockdown for a month and most areas – barring very few – still remain shuttered and under lockdown as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains committed to following the zero-Covid policy.
Family members of a nonagenarian couple speaking to news agency BBC highlighted the plight of senior residents under the zero-Covid policy and expressed their fears that putting old people in poor quarantine conditions is akin to being handed out a death sentence.
The family members also told BBC that authorities gave an all clear to one of the 90-year-olds, allowing him to quarantine at his home but they said that his wife was not so lucky and was forced to quarantine at a poorly managed quarantine centre.
The reluctance and fear of the CCP is evident in the speech of the Shanghai citizens who spoke to the BBC. “Quarantine centres are not as good as hospitals. But I feel the country has tried its best to look after them,” one Shanghai resident said. He also said that Shanghai – still fighting Covid – is running out of medical resources.
It could not be more evident when the people mentioned above said that instead of antibiotics and modern medicine, the people in China’s quarantine centres were forced to intake Chinese traditional medicine – which is inefficient in fighting Covid-19.
The family of the nonagenarian couple, however, said that the wife was forced to quarantine at such a centre. The centre was ill-equipped as the toilet block is more than 100m from her bed and the lady even drank less water so that she does not have to relieve herself.
The other thing that the family pointed out were fluorescent lights which remained switched on throughout the day which did not allow the elderly to rest properly.
Residents in Beijing fear what might be in store for them after such reports pour out of Shanghai. The extent of Shanghai lockdown as well as the unyielding attitude of the CCP has again put the spotlight on how the party wants to implement zero-Covid strategy – even at the cost of its elderly.
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