For the past four weeks, Shanghai has been shut down due to the increase in infection, which has forced most of the city's 26 million inhabitants to stay at home.

More than half a million cases of infection have been registered since 1 March.

In Beijing, too, the infection has increased - and this has led Beijingers to fear a similar situation as in Shanghai.

People are therefore now rushing to the grocery stores to stock up before a possible shutdown, despite the fact that only a dozen cases of infection have been reported in the past week.

- It is completely empty on the shelves in the grocery stores and much is closed, says Ulrika Bergsten, SVT's Asia correspondent.

A grocery store in the Chaoyang district of Beijing.

In Chaoyang alone, 3.5 million people live - who have set out to stock up.

Photo: private

Beijing has had shutdowns to and fro throughout the pandemic, but the reason for concern now is because it is seeing what is happening in Shanghai.

- Most people in Beijing have been preparing for weeks for a descent.

But I do not think they will get a similar shutdown as in Shanghai, it is much more organized in Beijing.

Continued strategy of zero tolerance

As China still pursues a strict covid policy, which entails zero tariffs against the virus, the country therefore continues with severe restrictions.

- You have been politically locked in a corner.

It started as a political prestige to pursue a zero tolerance and that one would now abandon it would mean years of lost work, says Ulrika Bergsten.

It is also about avoiding a healthcare collapse.

- There are very few emergency care places in China.

Children in quarantine without their parents

There are several factors that have increased the infection in the country.

Partly due to more testing but also a skepticism about China's own vaccine, Sinapharma and Sinovac.

- Especially among the elderly, where many are unvaccinated, says Ulrika Bergsten.

In Shanghai, daily covid tests are performed and those who test positive are taken to quarantine facilities outside the city.

Children under the age of seven have been quarantined in special children's wards without their parents.

- It is something that has upset many.

Several Americans have left because there is too great a risk that families will split up, says Ulrika Bergsten, who herself left China in March.