Under China’s ‘zero COVID,’ uncertainty reigns and unsettles

By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — As coronavirus cases rose in Shanghai earlier this year and the city’s lockdown stretched from weeks to months, Leah Zhang’s feeling of suffocation grew. Though she could walk around campus freely, she was robbed of weekends spent seeing concerts in the city. She couldn’t stomach the cafeteria food. When her boyfriend told her he would “always trust” Shanghai’s government, she broke up with him. Zhang knows that her experience was hardly unique or even particularly extreme. But it gives a glimpse of how China’s stringent “zero-COVID” policy pushed ordinary people to a breaking point. That led to nationwide protests late last month.