Shanghai, China’s economic and commercial hub with a population of over 24 million, has been in a hard lockdown for the past two months, which has only just been lifted by the municipal government. Production activities were halted, businesses shut down, and residents were barred from leaving their homes.
Residents have decried the absolute and heavily enforced restrictions, some unnecessary, imposed by their communities, while government staffers from Shanghai’s many local community committees deferred residents’ complaints by saying they were just following “orders from above”—referring to the municipal and central government authorities.
