The lockdown in Guiyang came without warning.
"On Saturday morning, the elevators were suddenly turned off," says Alexander Pinel.
The Frenchman lives with his wife, son and father-in-law on the 39th floor of a skyscraper in the capital of the southern Chinese province of Guizhou.
All exits of the apartment block and access to the underground car park are locked with U-locks because three corona cases were discovered in neighboring high-rise buildings.
At first the residents could still buy food, but then no longer.
Friederike Böge
Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.
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"We had supplies, but a lot of young people don't cook and are used to ordering their food," says Pinel.
There were calls for help on neighborhood chat groups from people who hadn't eaten in two days.
The parents of boarding school students, who are usually taken care of in the canteen, begged neighbors to take care of the youngsters.
In a residential tower, those trapped had to do without water for a day after a pipe burst.
The elevators were only turned on by the hour so that residents could take the garbage down and queue in the courtyard for corona tests.
Testing was carried out from ten o'clock in the evening until four o'clock in the morning.
Deleted by censors
As with previous lockdowns, sick people struggled to get medical care.
Pinel's father-in-law should have had an operation on his back.
But the hospitals in the area were overburdened with the accommodation of the 300 corona cases because every infected person is admitted.
The neighbors had a toddler with jaundice, says the Frenchman.
They were sent from one authority to the next, but were not given permission to leave their home.
After all, they would have bribed someone to go to the hospital.
"All of this happens because those in charge don't care about the well-being of the people, they only care about pleasing their manager," says Pinel.
Many residents drew attention to their plight on the Internet.
But their texts were quickly deleted by the censors.
Instead, state media disseminated propaganda videos in which volunteers distributed generous packages of provisions.
Pinel and his family only received a supply package on Thursday, the sixth day of the lockdown: a bag of rice and two mooncakes, probably because the traditional moon festival is at the weekend.
Ready-to-eat pasta and biscuits
"I didn't expect the situation to change so quickly," says a traveling salesman who came to Guiyang a day before the partial lockdown and was stuck there.
He ate instant noodles and biscuits.
"On Tuesday I ran out of food, I still had water and grains." On Thursday he received a package with vegetables from the authorities.
He needs two negative corona tests to be allowed to leave the city, but so far only one test has been carried out in his block of flats because there are not enough staff.
None of this is new experience.
Similar scenes have taken place in other cities such as Shanghai and Xi'an.
The situation in Guiyang is nonetheless instructive.
On the one hand, the city of six million hardly gets any attention.
It is safe to assume that there are many Guiyangs in China: fully or partially sealed off cities that nobody talks about.
The government does not release figures on how many people are affected by its zero-Covid strategy.
The magazine "Caixin" currently estimates the number at 65 million people in 33 cities.
Second, the Guiyang case shows that, despite the experience, the same mistakes are still being made.
21 million residents imprisoned
Third, the situation is a symptom of the nervousness in the country.
In five weeks, CP General Secretary Xi Jinping wants to be confirmed for a third term at the 20th party congress.
It is the most important political event in five years.
No official in the country wants to make a mistake during this time.
Xi Jinping's zero-Covid strategy is top priority.
This leads to measures that go far beyond the target in order to demonstrate loyalty to the party leadership.
At the same time, the population's frustration with the permanent restrictions, the subsequent economic costs and the irrational excesses, which are becoming increasingly clear, is growing.
Nevertheless, there is no debate about an exit strategy.
For many, this raises the question of whether the zero-Covid policy might have other goals:
Even during the rescue work after the Sichuan earthquake, which just killed more than 70 people, the zero-Covid strategy was a top priority.
Only paramedics and firefighters who could prove that they came from a district in which no corona case had recently been reported were admitted.
Despite the urgency of their life-saving work, the helpers had to queue daily for corona tests.
In Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, the 21 million residents are locked in their homes because of a corona outbreak.
The city is a good 200 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake.
When the walls began to shake, some residents were prevented from going outside.
Locked emergency exits and helpers in white anti-epidemic suits blocked their way.
This prompted sarcastic comments about the zero-Covid policy, which boasts that China is saving lives while the West is not.
In the city of Qingdao, occupants of an ambulance were injured in a traffic accident this week, apparently including a corona patient.
Some passers-by rushed to help.
The local disease control authority then issued a "search report" in which the courageous helpers were urged to come forward and go into isolation.