On April 16, Shanghai resident Kumi Wu, woke up with a sore throat. She went down from her apartment for the regular Covid test everyone in China's financial hub is forced to do. The next day she was summoned by the disease control department and told she would go to a make-shift hospital, although she felt she had recovered overnight.
This marked the start of a bewildering journey for 26-year-old Wu who finally got to the Nanhui Lingang make-shift hospital three days later.
China's most populous city of 25 million is batting the country's biggest Covid-19 outbreak with a policy that forces all positive cases into quarantine centres. Shanghai is carrying out daily citywide Covid-19 tests and accelerating transfer of positive cases to central facilities to eradicate virus transmission outside quarantine areas. In the past week, authorities have also transferred entire communities, including uninfected people, saying they need to disinfect their homes, according to residents and social media posts.
Wu filmed and took photos of her experience at the two transit facilities which were teeming with people like her as they made their way to hospital. She first stayed in a cavernous room with rollaway beds and blankets used by others who had passed through the facility and ate meals out of plastic boxes. She had no information on what was happening to her.
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