Life goes on as near-normal for quarantined complex residents
A staff member disinfects the floor in front of the entrance of the complex.
A Pudong residential complex, Xinyuanxiyuan, with 5,000 residents, has been under lockdown since Monday after a resident tested positive for COVID-19.
With only one entrance in use, the quarantined Xinyuanxiyuan residential complex in Chuansha town of the Pudong New Area only allows residents to get in and no one can get out except for ambulances.
A total of six staff members from the town's government, disease control authorities, media, public security organs and other social institutions are working in shifts in front of the complex to maintain order and guarantee the needs of residents, according to Shi Linlin, an official of the town's government.
The neighborhood has been locked down since 3pm on Monday after a resident there was confirmed with COVID-19.
The complex, with around 5,000 residents, was listed as a medium-risk area in Shanghai.
A first round of the nucleic acid testing was completed for residents on Monday night, and there have been no positive results so far, the Pudong government said.
More than 100 staff members are on 24-hour standby to respond to the needs of locked-down residents.
The complex is disinfected twice daily, at around 8am and 4pm, during the lockdown period.
A logistics site has been set up 30 meters from the entrance for parcels and food bought online by the quarantined residents. All the bags and packages are sterilized before they get inside the complex.
A logistics site has been set up near the entrance of the complex and volunteers deliver food and supplies, which are sterilized, to the residents.
Though residents in the complex are now in quarantine, thanks to the volunteers, security guards, and police officers, their daily life has been largely unhindered.
"Nine of our police officers live in the complex," said Tang Junwei, the chief of the publicity division of the Pudong branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. "They took the initiative of maintaining security and order in the complex during the quarantine period, especially when samples were collected for nucleic acid tests."
Police patrol vehicles have also been dispatched to maintain security and traffic order around the complex, Tang added.
"We got tested very quickly last night with the help of the community members," one of the residents said on Tuesday.
The emergency lockdown has not caused stress nor anxiety for residents, the woman surnamed Zhang insisted.
"They are at a fairly safe distance from the confirmed member," she said, talking about her daughter's family, to whom she was delivering supplies. "And we trust the government."
While some residents are finding it quite inconvenient to obtain their online orders, the volunteers are working round-the-clock to deliver the supplies – mainly vegetables, fruits and water – into the heavily populated neighborhood.
Some residents have asked family members – like Zhang – to deliver necessities for them, but most still order provisions through delivery platforms such as Meituan and Ele.me. These service platforms are experiencing a surge in orders from the neighborhood since the lockdown was imposed.
Asked whether he was not afraid of getting infected himself, Zhou, a grocery delivery man from Dingdong Ltd, said: "Their lives will be so much harder if I don't come."
Furthermore, for individual emergency situations such as chemotherapy, dialysis, and pregnant women who are about to give birth, the town's prevention and control office will contact the district's health commission center and open an "emergency channel" to transfer such patients by ambulances to designated hospitals under closed-loop management, according to the town's government.
Staff members hand over delivery bags with food and groceries to residents.
