The continuous pandemic lockdown of Shanghai has caused various hardships for residents. People are starving from lack of food and patients are struggling to get necessary medical treatment. There have been several deaths involving patients with acute but treatable illnesses, as they had to have a negative COVID-19 test result before being admitted to hospital.
When Chinese state media reported that Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, was quickly admitted to the hospital because he had a headache on April 19, readers asked angrily in the comments section, “Didn’t he also have to take a nucleic acid test?!”