Beibei sleeps next to thousands of strangers in rows of cots in a high-ceilinged exhibition center. The lights are on all night and the 30-year-old real estate saleswoman has yet to find a hot shower. Beibei and her husband were ordered to the huge National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai last Tuesday, after spending 10 days alone at home after a positive test. Their 2-year-old daughter, who was negative, went to her grandfather, while her nanny was also quarantined. Residents have no “obvious symptoms,” Beibei said in a video interview with the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There are people who cough,” he said. “But I have no idea if they have laryngitis or omicron.” The 50,000-bed conference center is one of more than 100 quarantine facilities set up in China’s most populous city for those like Beibei who tested positive but had little or no symptoms. It is part of the official efforts to curb the largest coronavirus epidemic in China since the two-year pandemic began. But it also tests the patience of people who are increasingly bored with China’s harsh “zero COVID” policy, which aims to isolate any case. “In the beginning, people were scared and panicked,” Beibei said. “But with the publication of the daily data, people are beginning to accept that this particular virus is not so horrible.” Beibei was informed that it was going to be released on Monday after two negative tests while it was in the conference center. Most of Shanghai has been closed since March 28 and its 25 million people have been ordered to stay home. This has led to complaints of food shortages and growing financial losses. Anyone who comes out positive but has little or no symptoms should spend a week in a quarantine facility. Beibei said she had a stuffy nose and briefly lost some of her sense of taste and smell, but those symptoms went away in a few days. On Sunday, China reported 26,155 new cases, all but 3,529 of which had no symptoms. Shanghai accounted for 95% of the total, or 24,820, including 3,238 asymptomatic. The city has reported more than 300,000 cases since the end of March. Shanghai began easing restrictions last week, though a health official warned the city did not have the epidemic under control. At the convention center, residents are checked twice a day for fever and asked to record health information on mobile phones, according to Beibei. Most people spend their time reading, dancing in the square, taking online lessons or watching videos on their cell phones. The 420,000-square-foot (4.6 million square foot) exhibition center is better known as the site of the largest car show in the world. Other quarantine areas include temporary prefabricated buildings. Residents of other facilities have complained of leaking roofs, inadequate food supplies and delays in treatment for medical problems. “We could not find a place with a hot shower,” said Beibei. “The lights are on all night and it’s hard to fall asleep.” A video taken by the AP showed wet beds and floors due to a leaking roof in a different facility in a prefabricated building. “The bathrooms are not very clean,” Beibei said. “So many people use them and volunteers or cleaners can’t keep up.”
