Shanghai is finally opening up after three months of coercive detention, although China has effectively been in a state of lockdown for two years. Horror stories abound: of employees who found their office doors chained shut during the working day, and were condemned to stay there for months, scrabbling around for food, like a scene from Lord of the Flies; of a woman who was walking a neighbour’s dog being snatched and taken to a quarantine hotel, where she was held in one room, with the dog, for ten weeks.
