The Chinese city of Shanghai is under a Covid lockdown enforced by robots, with aerial drones allegedly ordering citizens to “control the soul’s desire for freedom.”
The claim was made by Alice Su, a senior correspondent for the Economist, who shared a clip from Chinese social media site Weibo of a drone flying around Shanghai at night telling the city’s 26 million citizens to stop singing.
As seen on Weibo: Shanghai residents go to their balconies to sing & protest lack of supplies. A drone appears: “Please comply w covid restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing.” https://t.co/0ZTc8fznaV pic.twitter.com/pAnEGOlBIh
— Alice Su 蘇奕安 (@aliceysu) April 6, 2022
Su said: “Shanghai residents go to their balconies to sing & protest lack of supplies. A drone appears: “Please comply w covid restrictions. Control your soul’s desire for freedom. Do not open the window or sing.””
Reportedly, robotic dogs are also wandering around the streets repeating government-approved messages, such as “wear a mask, wash your hands, check your temperature.”
Robot dogs and drones are patrolling the streets and skies of Shanghai to help enforce a lockdown on the city’s 26 million residents aimed at curbing the vicious spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus https://t.co/aTGzxmVKc2
— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) March 31, 2022
China has been taking drastic lockdown actions in Shanghai since March, when 30,000 Covid cases broke out, pursuing a radical “Zero Covid” policy.
Citizens are locked in their houses, and require local authorities to deliver supplies such as food and water to them.
However, Chinese social media is full of complaints that food orders cannot be delivered because the delivery system is overburdened with 26 million mouths to feed.
Residents are confined to their homes, banned from leaving for even essential reasons such as grocery shoppinghttps://t.co/bqJRKkAU0I
— BBC News India (@BBCIndia) April 7, 2022
The city’s authorities have acknowledged the problem.
“It is true there are some difficulties in ensuring the supply of daily necessities,” said Liu Min, director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.
Reportedly, children in Shanghai are being removed from their parents if they test positive, and mandatory mass testing is in place, with Covid-positive individuals being sent to mandatory quarantine facilities.
If one tests positive for Covid, they cannot isolate in their home, even if they are asymptomatic.