Thousands of residents in central Shanghai are being relocated to hotels on emergency isolation measures after local officials said hospital staff and patients in the city center tested positive for the CCP virus.
The surrounding areas have also been blocked, with residents experiencing rapidly deteriorating conditions as the government tries to prevent the virus from spreading.
Authorities have also been conducting mass tests, with the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission reporting on January 22 nine recently confirmed COVID-19 cases. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party). Six of the cases were determined to be locally transmitted, while three were imported.
The cases of local transmission were all from the Huangpu district in Shanghai – the same area where the positive staff at COVID-19 hospital lived.
The Zhaotong residential community in the district was transformed into a medium-risk area on January 21 after positive cases were confirmed to the public. The area was then closed and groups of residents transferred to hotels on 21 and 22 January.
According to Chinese media reports, the Bund police station said about 900 people were relocated within 5 hours on the afternoon of January 21 and another 1,100 people were relocated on January 22. Visitors to Huangpu district hotels were included in the relocation efforts.
A hotel owner in the Zhaotong community told the Epoch Times that they closed their deal on January 21, and all employees and customers were sent to other hotels for isolation.
“There is a resident here who tested positive at the cancer hospital. He lives in our Zhaotong community. (We) are all isolated in hotels, and there are 15,000 people here who have been tested. The entire community is empty. “
This is the first time that Shanghai has adopted relocation as a measure of isolation since the beginning of the epidemic. The Epoch Times obtained a video showing people being relocated.
The Shanghai Zhongfu Shifuhui Hotel, where one of the travelers who tested positive for COVID-19 was staying, has also been upgraded to a medium risk area and all areas around the hotel have been blocked. On January 21, two hotel staff and a guest tested positive for COVID-19.
The owner of a restaurant near the Zhongfu Shifuhui Hotel told the Epoch Times that many local roads were blocked and the hotel and its surrounding areas were completely blocked.
They had to close the restaurant yesterday, said the owner.
Local authorities announced that they have formed a team of 3,100 people to assist in tracking contacts and investigating cases.
Mass Testing
After Shanghai’s first cases at two local hospitals were announced publicly on January 21, authorities demanded that all staff at the city’s medical institutions take the COVID-19 test.
The test was soon expanded to all residents at risk. City health officials announced on January 22 that they had tested 15,918 people for the virus.
The Epoch Times obtained a video showing hospital staff and residents waiting in line to be tested, while Shanghai’s streets were blocked and residents informed by health professionals that they would be relocated and isolated.
Li, a Shanghai resident, told the Epoch Times on January 21 that he remains concerned that the Chinese Communist regime is not yet telling the truth about the epidemic.
“This [the government] said that more than 10,000 people have been tested, and how many results have not come out? There may be positives among the unannounced, ”he said.
Panic among medical students
After confirmed cases in hospitals – Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center and Renji Hospital, which is affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine – panic spread among students of related medical schools, with many fearing that schools would be closed and they would be forced to stay on campus. Students began to encourage themselves to leave the campus overnight, before the end of the semester.
A student posted on social media that he had left the campus and arrived home at 2:30 am on January 22.
“Students who were scheduled to run experiments on January 30, all rescheduled for today,” he said in the post. “The campus is full of the sound of bags mopping the floor. I feel that the epidemic is very close to me. I really hope that the Shanghai epidemic will be effectively controlled as soon as possible. “
Gu Xiaohua, Xiao Lushen and Luo Ya contributed to this report.