ZERO SOMETHING

China Goes Mad in Lockdown, With Murder Suicide Caught on Video as Shanghai Howls at the Moon

Residents pushed to the brink by harsh regional and city zero-COVID measures affecting tens of millions.

A disturbing video showing a couple apparently falling to their deaths from a fifth-floor window in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin has been circulating on social media, and is being cited as evidence of the damage that China’s zero-COVID lockdown policy is doing to the country’s citizens. The video appears to show a man, said to be a struggling local business owner, forcibly holding his wife as he pulls himself and her out of an apartment window. Tianjin was locked down for several weeks earlier this year as officials sought in vain to stamp out COVID infections. On Monday, authorities in Shanghai moved to ease the city of 26 million’s harsh lockdown—which has seen just two volunteers per apartment building allowed to shop outside each day for a maximum of two hours—amid reports of civil disobedience and supermarket lootings. Areas with zero COVID cases over a two-week stretch will be allowed to engage in “appropriate activity,” a city official said. Some 10,000 recovered COVID patients were released Sunday, but Monday saw a record 25,173 new cases. Eerie video posted online has shown what appears to be locked-down residents of dozens of Shanghai tower blocks howling at the night sky.

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