Bashing death of pet dog fuels anger in Shanghai

A Shanghai resident who tested positive for Covid saw her pet dog beaten to death right after she was dragged to a van to be sent to an isolation center.

The scene was seen in a video that made it to the internet and in photographs, which showed a corgi being beaten to death by a shovel-wielding anti-pandemic worker in a protective suit. The incident was outside a residential estate in Pudong district.

The dog appeared to have been left on the street when its owner was taken away. It was after the woman was gone that the worker laid about the dog with his shovel.

A WeChat group featured the woman claiming to be the dog's owner who said she did not abandon the dog.

"We had no food at home so we wanted to take the dog to the neighborhood committee and ask them to take care of it, but they refused to do so," she said.

The committee also did not allow her to take the dog home and instead told her to leave it outside.

"We thought that leaving the dog outside would mean it becoming a stray," she added. "But it wouldn't starve to death. We didn't expect it would be beaten to death right after we left."

A staff member of the neighborhood committee later claimed the arrangement came about as there was worry about a transmission risk but admitted the decision was not weighed thoroughly.

The committee will now contact the dog owner and provide compensation.

Another person posted a video on Weibo that featured police broadcasting a message that residents of a residential estate in Shanghai's Songjiang district should not open their windows and sing.

"Please control your soul and desire for freedom," was the police plea.

But a person who said he had a classmate who was a resident there claimed that people were not singing on their balconies but rather asking loudly for necessities to be provided.

Videos showing chaotic quarantine arrangements in isolation facilities in Shanghai were also spread on Weibo. One showed people in a makeshift hospital in Nanhui district fighting over supplies as the facility lacked managers.

Some people in isolation facilities also complained that there were no food and water.

One woman recounted how she and her mother cried after grabbing a box of bottled water.

Shanghai authorities pleaded yesterday that they were trying to improve the distribution of food and other essentials to residents amid growing public discontent as curbs stretched to an 11th day.

Streets have fallen largely silent after authorities imposed curbs under the "zero tolerance" policy, with only health-care workers, volunteers, delivery personnel and others with special permission allowed out.

Authorities say the number of couriers trying to keep 26 million residents supplied was down to just 11,000. Still operating but overloaded services included Meituan and Alibaba's Freshippo online grocery platform and its Ele.me service.

In an open letter, the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party called on members to "show their swords and fight against all kinds of behavior that interferes with and destroys the overall efforts against the pandemic."

Shanghai has sufficient reserves of staples such as rice and meat, but issues have cropped up in distribution and "last-mile deliveries" because of pandemic controls, Shanghai vice mayor Chen Tong admitted.