Coronavirus China: Shanghai cleaner sleeps four overnights in public restroom in Covid-19 lockdown, cleans facility for residents with no private toilets
- The woman became something of a local hero as she managed to keep the public toilet in good condition in a compound that has flats with no private toilets
- But she compared the ordeal to “feeling like a boulder was sitting on my chest”
A cleaner in Shanghai spent four consecutive nights sleeping in a public restroom to ensure the facilities remained functional for a locked-down residential compound with many flats that do not have private bathrooms.
Li Chunqiao’s employer, the Shanghai Yangpu Environment Development Co., said she got caught while at work and had to stay in the toilet from March 17 to 21 when the complex was locked down after authorities found coronavirus cases in the residential compound.
Two of the buildings in the complex were built without private bathrooms in the 1950s and residents depend on the public washroom.
“Since the residents could not leave their flats, more people had to use this washroom. A lot of medical workers and volunteers also used the facilities,” she said.
Li said she disinfected the toilets every 30 minutes when the restroom was open between 5am and 10pm.
While Li decided she had a role to play in China’s fight against Covid-19, her situation caused her significant anxiety she compared to “feeling like a boulder was sitting on my chest”.
Li had to rely on her colleagues and local residents for food, and at night she slept in her clothes in a reclining chair that her colleagues sent her. They also brought her a quilt, hazmat suits and other protective gear.
“There was heavy rain and a strange smell in the air at night, so I had to light mosquito coils. I could not sleep on the first night as it was cold, and I felt strange,” she said, “but then I realised someone had to be on duty.”
Since the start of March, Shanghai has been fighting its worst Covid-19 outbreak, driven by the Omicron variant. On Wednesday, it reported over 5,600 new local cases, about 5,300 of which were asymptomatic.
Lockdowns were first imposed on certain residential compounds where confirmed cases were found, but from this week, the city has been under a two-part lockdown that affects the entire population.
