Voices from Shanghai: The trials of living through a massive COVID lockdown
China's lockdown and quarantine policy is testing the limits of the city of 26 million. Parents were separated from kids. And there's not enough staff for the elderly residents of care centers.
The first thing the orderly noticed when she arrived at the Shanghai nursing home was the rats.
"Many of the residents are paralyzed elderly folk, so we had to keep watch. If the rats bit our patients, they would not even be able to yell for help," she said.
But she and the approximately 40 other orderlies hired by the Shanghai Donghai Elderly Care Hospital had a bigger problem on their hands: a rampant but undisclosed COVID-19 outbreak that had decimated the previous care staff and left the hospital overwhelmed and under-resourced.
"We were tricked into working here," said another orderly on the care
