The Logic of Lockdowns Leads to Shanghai

Shanghai is China’s largest city and home to the busiest port in the world. Its population is roughly three times that of New York City. For more than two weeks, Shanghai’s 26 million residents have been confined to their homes. Authorities dispatch anyone who tests positive for Covid to crowded and sometimes unhygienic quarantine facilities, even if asymptomatic. Despite this protocol, Shanghai has reported a record number of symptomatic cases. Many families are struggling to obtain food, elderly people have been denied medical care, and some young children have been separated from their parents. Every day, more videos emerge of dystopian scenes: officers in hazmat suits removing citizens from their apartments, housecats being collected and culled, people jumping off buildings, robotic dogs policing the streets.

From a Western perspective, it is difficult to ascertain whether these policies are the result of political strife inside China, or of a genuine belief in the “dynamic-clearance” strategy to identify and extinguish all outbreaks. Whatever the reason, Shanghai’s lockdown has held up a mirror to the West’s Covidian zealots.

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