There have been chaotic scenes at an Ikea in Shanghai as panicked shoppers rushed for the exits ahead of a lockdown due to a COVID case.
Videos shared on social media at the weekend showed crowds of customers yelling and pushing each other to escape the building, as health officials tried to shut them inside.
Footage showed shoppers bursting through one door blocked by authorities.
The snap store lockdown came after it was discovered that a customer from Ikea in the Xuhui district had been in close contact with a positive COVID case.
Under China’s strict “zero-COVID” strategy, flash lockdowns of areas where positive cases or their close contacts have been detected are common.
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Shanghai Health Commission deputy director Zhao Dandan said on Sunday the sudden shutdown was ordered because a close contact was discovered to a six-year-old boy who tested positive after returning to Shanghai from Lhasa in Tibet.
Mr Zhao did not comment on the scenes of panic.
He said the “store and affected area” would be under “closed loop” quarantine for two days. He did not say when the close contact was thought to have visited the Ikea.
Under China’s rules, anyone at the Ikea store and related areas during certain designated times must go into two days of quarantine and five days of health surveillance.
According to the BBC, many Shanghai’s 25 million people have been caught up in flash lockdowns, in unusual locations, including restaurants, gyms and offices.
It said the chaos at Ikea came after a week after another wild scene showing people in another Shanghai neighbourhood also fleeing stores after the discovery of possible COVID cases.
On Monday, 80,000 people were undergo PCR testing in Shanghai, while 400 people were deemed close contacts of the infected boy.
Six positive coronavirus cases have been reported in Shanghai since the weekend, the Washington Post reports. Five were asymptomatic.
