Anger mounts among Shanghai residents over harsh lockdown
SHANGHAI, April 23
China’s major financial hub of Shanghai reported more Covid related deaths on Friday, as residents vented their anger over a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.
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Shanghai’s full-city lockdown began at the start of April, though many people have been confined to their homes for much longer, and the stress began to tell on the residents. The city, battling China’s biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, reported 12 new Covid deaths on Friday, up from 11 a day before.
The patients who died had an average age of 88, the Shanghai government said. All had underlying health conditions, and none had been vaccinated. On social media, netizens battled against censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April”, a montage of voices recorded over the course of the Shanghai outbreak. Panning across Shanghai’s silent skyscrapers, the video consists of residents complaining about the lack of food and medicine, as well as the heavy-handed tactics of city authorities. All direct references to the film were removed from the Weibo microblogging service by Saturday morning, though some comments criticising the censorship survived. — Reuters
