Thousands of residents in central Shanghai are being moved to hotels for emergency isolation measures after local authorities said hospital workers and downtown patients had tested positive for the CCP virus.
Surrounding areas have also been closed, and residents are facing rapidly deteriorating conditions as the government tries to stop the spread of the virus.
Authorities have also conducted massive tests, with the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission reporting on January 22 nine newly confirmed COVID-19 cases. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the PCC (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Six of the cases were determined to come from local transmissions, while three were imported.
All cases of local transmission came from Shanghai’s Huangpu District, the same area where COVID-19 positive hospital workers lived.
The Zhaotong residential community in the district was upgraded to a medium-risk area on January 21 after the positive cases were confirmed to the public. The area then closed and groups of residents moved to the hotels on 21 and 22 January.
According to Chinese media reports, the Bund police station said about 900 people were transferred in 5 hours on the afternoon of January 21 and that 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 business on January 21 and that all staff and customers have been sent to other secluded hotels.
“There is a resident who tested positive for cancer. Live in our community of Zhaotong. We are all isolated in hotels and there are 15,000 people who have been tested. The whole community is empty. “
This is the first time Shanghai has adopted relocation as an isolation measure since the start of the epidemic. The Epoch Times got a video showing the relocation of people.
The Shanghai Zhongfu Shifuhui Hotel, which housed one of the travelers who tested positive for COVID-19, was also upgraded to a medium-risk area and all surrounding areas of the hotel were closed. On January 21, two hotel employees and a guest tested positive for COVID-19.
A restaurant owner near the Zhongfu Shifuhui Hotel told The Epoch Times that many local roads have been blocked and that the hotel and its surrounding areas have been completely closed.
Yesterday they had to close the restaurant, the owner said.
Local authorities announced that they have formed a team of 3,100 people to help locate contacts and investigate cases.
Massive tests
After Shanghai’s first cases at two local hospitals were publicly announced on January 21, authorities demanded that all staff at the city’s medical institutions be subjected to COVID-19 testing.
Tests were soon extended to all at-risk residents. City health officials announced on Jan. 22 that 15,918 people had been tested for the virus.
The Epoch Times obtained a video showing hospital workers and residents waiting in line for the test, while the streets of Shanghai were blocked and health workers told residents they would be relocated and isolated.
Li, a resident of Shanghai, told The Epoch Times on January 21 that he remains concerned that the Chinese communist regime has yet to tell the truth about the epidemic.
“Is it like that [the government] said more than 10,000 people have been tested and how many results have not come out? There can be positive aspects among the uninformed, ”he said.
Panic among medical students
After confirmed cases in hospitals (Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center and Renji Hospital, which is affiliated with the Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai), panic has spread among students from related medical schools, and many worry that schools will be closed and would be forced to stay on campus. Students began encouraging each other to leave campus overnight before the end of the semester.
A student posted on social media that he had left campus and had arrived home at 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 22.
“Students who had planned to do experiments on January 30 were rescheduled for today,” he said in the message. “The campus is full of the sound of suitcases rubbing the floor. I think the epidemic is so close to me. I really hope that the epidemic in Shanghai can be effectively controlled as soon as possible. “
Gu Xiaohua, Xiao Lushen and Luo Ya contributed to this report.