At the time of writing, parts of Shanghai have entered their 15th day under lockdown to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious Covid-19 omicron variant. Residents have been asked to stay within their compounds, public transportation and most businesses have shut down, and food and other supply shortages were reported in China’s biggest city.
Much of the media coverage of the lockdown has focused on urban communities, inhabited by mostly middle class families, as they compete to order vegetables online and make literary memes about the pandemic. But what about Shanghai’s estimated five million migrant workers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, are unable to work during the pandemic, and reside in crowded factory dormitories or suburban villages with few resources to handle a sustained lockdown? TWOC spoke to four workers from different areas of China on why they came to Shanghai and how they’ve fared in the last half-month:
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