Residents compared being locked down in one of the world’s most densely populated countries to the penal system.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) pandemic restrictions are so harsh people have started regarding themselves as jail inmates.

“It was like a prison,” Shanghai resident Coco Wang said, according to Reuters.

Wang revealed she is more concerned about the CCP’s authoritarian zero-COVID strategy than the virus itself.

“We are not afraid of the virus; we are afraid of this policy,” she said, according to the newswire agency.

The strict policy has already forced up to 59 million people into isolation following Beijing’s recent decision to lock down parts of the nation’s capital.

Shanghai authorities have announced to resume public transportation operations on May 22 gradually. Accordingly, four metro lines 3, 6, 10, 16, and over 200 bus routes would be put back to work.

Shanghai's lockdown has been dragging on for over a month and has sent the lives of more than 25 million residents into complete chaos.

Shanghai is going through a strict lockdown that has lasted for two months with no end in sight.

According to the residents at the scene, the imposed measures are very extreme in many cases.

Beijing authorities reported 94 new infected cases on May 22. The figure marks an increase in the daily new infected cases.

Acid testing industry is seeing a booming period within the last two years. It takes in more than 23 billions dollars alone for the 2021 Chinese Lunar New Year travel period. And along with it comes rampant fraudulent testing malpractice and products.

The CCP's "Dynamic Clearance" political movement has intensified. Tieling City, Liaoning Province, ordered "25 risk groups" be tested for Covid once a day. The city of Kaiyuan, under its jurisdiction, does not spare even the children of medical staff, and parents are complaining.

According to the Supreme People's Procuratorate website, on May 20, Gong Jianhua 龚建华 , a former deputy director of Jiangxi江西 Provincial People's Congress, was arrested of taking bribes.

A Chinese social media user revealed on May 22 that depositors could not withdraw money from several banks in Henan for 35 days.

While it is summertime in China now, many cities are experiencing snowfall.

On May 20, officers in Tiedong district of Siping city, Jilin Province, detected two residents who missed the 25th round of COVID-19 testing. Both were summoned to the police station.

According to a statement by Tiedong Announcement on Weibo, the two persons were required to pay the full cost of previous tests.

Siping city said on Weibo it mass tested the entire citizens on May 19. That included all enterprises, institutions, schools, express logistics, health institutions, among others.

Bloomberg Economics predicts that China will grow only 2%, down from a previously projected rate of 3.6% this year. This downgrading indicates the first time that the world's second-largest economy has lagged behind that of its rival since 1976 when China was recovering from a decade of Cultural Revolution turbulence.

A video recording of a Guangzhou man being placed under 24-hour monitoring after returning from Shanghai has recently been in widespread circulation on the Internet.

As Beijing has tightened its Covid-combating measures since the latest wave of outbreaks, Apple’s suppliers in China have faced significant disruption to their operations. 

Japan's Ministry of Defense said that the Maritime Self-Defense Force confirmed seeing a Russian naval intelligence collection ship near the Soya Strait at about 5 a.m. on May 18.

The new wave of the Covid outbreak in Beijing has lasted for a month. China’s capital now has continuously upgraded its containment measures. In a latest response to the epidemic, Beijing has decided to close its fifth district. It ordered five districts to implement home office.

These districts are Chaoyang, Fangshan, Shunyi, Fengtai, and Haidian. About tens of millions of people have been affected by the containment measures there.

Haidian is the latest district that has upgraded the level of Covid management and control measures.

On May 20, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake shook Hanyuan County in the Western city Ya’an of China’s Sichuan province. The tremor was strong enough to be felt in neighboring areas.

China’s zero-Covid policy has been bringing huge profits to the nucleic acid testing industry. A few days ago, Beijing detected fraudulent nucleic acid testing sites and arrested some relevant people.

Early this week, Shanghai declared it was gradually reopening businesses, with the aim to return to normal life on June 1. This happened after a tight lockdown that lasted for two months, and brought about numerous complaints, harsh situation and even protests.