I’m tempted to say that I’ve never seen anything like this, mass screaming in the streets of a major city.

But I have, once. That was outside my window in lower Manhattan on 9/11, moments after the second plane hit.

Anyone who tells you they know which way the situation in Shanghai is going is lying. All bets are off.

What the?? This video taken yesterday in Shanghai, China, by the father of a close friend of mine. She verified its authenticity: People screaming out of their windows after a week of total lockdown, no leaving your apartment for any reason. pic.twitter.com/iHGOO8D8Cz

— Patrick Madrid ✌🏼 (@patrickmadrid) April 9, 2022

That video’s not manipulated. Someone else in the area filmed the same scene.

Another view. People weeping pic.twitter.com/yCtzB8A3qa

— Matthew Gartrell (@GartrellMatthew) April 9, 2022

Some personnel from the PLA are already inside the city to help medical workers there conduct mass testing. I wonder if that military presence isn’t about to be beefed up as Shanghai teeters towards open rebellion:

More food riots in Shanghai « Send the supplies ». Nothing has changed in the last few days. Logistics is still in chaos. It is really hard to understand why. #shanghai #COVID19 #ZeroCovid pic.twitter.com/oRwCHxMTKx

— Being (@tofoli) April 9, 2022

#shanghai #TheGreatTranslationMovement #大翻译运动 The police or the army of the CCP are beating ordinary citizens severely through epidemic prevention.I want to ask, is this a fight against COVID-19 or an opportunity to vent violence and suppress people? pic.twitter.com/3ybvhy39hb

— 一个自由主义者 (@champ1on6) April 6, 2022

Beijing is doing its best to stifle news of what’s happening but there’s enough awareness across China that people are beginning to stockpile food in case their own cities are suddenly locked down and faced with starvation. One post on China’s social media platform titled “What items should I prepare in case I suddenly get a quarantine notice?” has more than 40 million views.

At this point, if I lived in Shanghai, I’d be trying to catch COVID in the expectation that at least I’d be fed once I arrived at a quarantine facility. But that scheme has its drawbacks, even beyond getting sick:

Such as this concentration camp pic.twitter.com/bpIqFiAaYd

— Donna 3.0🎗 (@DonnaWongHK) April 8, 2022

I recommend watching the clips in this insane thread to get a sense of what it’s like there right now. Not all of them are verifiable — the reel of suicides may not consist exclusively of footage from Shanghai, for instance — but I suspect most are authentic.

Meanwhile, despite all of the grief and suffering that’s come from the lockdown, cases in the city continue to rise:

Shanghai identified 24,943 new Covid cases yesterday as cases continue to increase https://t.co/P0oEbfRFst

— Jared T Nelson (@Jaredtnelson) April 10, 2022

As I say, no one knows where this is going.

I’ll close with this bit of propaganda, outlandish even by Chinese standards:

Amongst all the angst and misunderstandings in locked down #Shanghai today, an official said that, of the city’s 130,000 official #Covid infections in this outbreak, there is only ONE person in a severe condition. This from Wu Qianyu of the Shanghai Health Commission. #China

— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) April 8, 2022

There’s no strain of COVID so mild that we’d expect just one severe case out of an infected population of 130,000. Beijing is surely lying about the numbers. But that lie is self-defeating: The more they assure the locals that the virus isn’t killing anyone, the harder it is to justify a protracted lockdown. If COVID in Shanghai is no more dangerous than the common cold, why the draconian restrictions? Open up and let nature takes its course.