Among my friends and family, almost everyone has a personal story to share about the lockdown chaos and misery: from sneaking out in darkness to barter some food with a neighbor, to learning harrowing experiences of a friend dumped into to a hastily built isolation ward with leaking roofs and overflowing toilets, and hearing the wailing of an old woman next door whose children were unable to see their newly deceased father one last time…

With state media headlines screaming “it’s not the flu!” against government statistics showing only about two dozen severe cases among the infected in Shanghai so far, nearly everyone seems to agree on the apparent absurdity of “the solution being worse than the problem” — particularly as stories surface on social media about deaths relating to those unable to receive medical care for non-Covid causes due to the lockdown.

Some residents have questioned online why the authorities appear more keen to attack critics of zero-Covid than to convince residents aged over 60 in the fast-graying city — the most vulnerable group with a disappointing vaccination rate of 62% — to get the shot.