Saturday witnessed frantic scenes at an Ikea store in Shanghai, with customers attempting to flee as authorities attempted to isolate them.
As a result of a customer’s close contact with a Covid-positive patient, health officials attempted to close the store in the Xuhui district.
Video footage reveals that the guards closed the doors at one point, but a throng forced them open and escaped.
This year began with a two-month lockdown in Shanghai.
Since then, by the country’s stringent “zero-Covid” strategy, the city of 20 million inhabitants has ordered immediate lockdowns in regions where positive cases or their close contacts have been found.
Many have been detained in strange places, such as hot pot restaurants, gyms, and workplaces.
The Ikea store was abruptly closed because a close contact of a six-year-old boy who tested positive after returning to Shanghai from Lhasa, Tibet, visited, according to the deputy director of the Shanghai Health Commission, Zhao Dandan.
He did not specify when he believed the close contact occurred at the store.
Mr. Zhao stated that anybody who visited the Ikea shop and surrounding areas must be quarantined for two days, followed by five days of health monitoring.
According to the Shanghai Daily, approximately 400 close contacts of the asymptomatic six-year-old boy had been identified by Sunday, and 80,000 people had been ordered to undergo PCR testing.
Sunday, Ikea customer care reported that the store was closed due to Covid restrictions.
The 1998 opening of the flagship Xuhui store marked the debut of the Swedish furniture retailer in China. It now has 35 locations nationwide.
China has adhered to its zero-Covid strategy to slow the spread of the coronavirus despite its enormous economic effect and growing public opposition.
The panic at Ikea follows videos from the previous week showing people in another part of Shanghai fleeing a building due to rumors of an abnormal Covid test result.
Earlier this year, during the citywide lockdown in Shanghai, numerous complaints of food shortages and bad living conditions in quarantine centers circulated.
During this period, people were shown on camera engaging in intense disputes with security personnel and screaming from windows in protest of the restrictions.
