[imagesource: Screenshot / YouTube]

Imagine going out for some well-deserved retail therapy at your favourite Swedish furniture store and then getting told over an intercom that you will not be allowed to leave for an undisclosed period of time.

That’s what happened to shoppers in an Ikea store in Shanghai, where a sudden ‘zero COVID’ lockdown was implemented after one person in the store tested positive for the virus.

The Washinton Post reported how the chaos was unleased, with masked shoppers scrambling to escape and a mob of people pushing against a door held by security guards so that they could exit:

China has been widely criticised for its draconian response to the pandemic, enforcing a strict “zero COVID” policy through mass testing and rapid lockdowns.

The Ikea lockdown is a dramatic example of this:

In a statement released Sunday, the Shanghai Health Commission’s deputy director, Zhao Dandan, said a 6-year-old boy tested positive for the coronavirus and was in close contact with multiple people who went to Ikea in the city’s Xuhui district. Zhao did not disclose when the close contacts were at the store.

According to the BBC, the child tested positive after returning to Shanghai from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. He remains asymptomatic and is under medical observation by Chinese authorities.

Shanghai’s health authorities have also asked all the people from the Ikea store to quarantine for two days and conduct five days of health checks.

80 000 people loosely connected to the child have also been ordered to take PCR tests.

Overall, though, the city of 25 million recorded just six positive COVID-19 cases, five of which were asymptomatic, on Monday.

[source:washingtonpost]