Residents of a Shanghai housing complex clashed with health officials on Thursday after attempting to obstruct a government-mandated requisition of buildings to lodge Covid-19 patients amid a coronavirus outbreak that has shut down the city for weeks.
The uncommon protest, footage of which was livestreamed and extensively disseminated on social media before being erased by censors, comes amid growing public dissatisfaction with the lockdown in Shanghai, China's financial metropolis.
The city of 26 million people is at the epicentre of China's greatest pandemic outbreak since the outbreak's inception, in a critical test of the country's "dynamic zero-Covid" approach.
Footage from the event in Shanghai's Pudong neighbourhood showed personnel in white hazmat suits labelled "police" pushing residents to the ground and taking several away toward a white van. People could be heard crying and yelling, "Bring them back!"
Several people could be heard yelling, "The cops are striking people!"
The Zhangjiang Group, the compound's owner, stated in a statement that five buildings had already been turned into isolation facilities for persons with proven Covid-19 infections, with plans to requisition nine more.
According to the report, the requisitions compelled 39 tenants to relocate to different portions of the compound, but they were compensated.
"On the afternoon of April 14, when our company organised the construction of the isolation fence, some tenants obstructed the construction site, and the competent departments dealt with it on the spot," the organisation claimed. "The situation has now calmed down."
The Shanghai authorities did not react immediately to a request for comment.
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