Five people are under investigation in Shanghai after an elderly resident at an aged care home was mistakenly declared dead, placed in a body bag and loaded into a car bound for the morgue.
Video of the incident was circulated online on Sunday, sparking widespread anger on Chinese social media.
The footage shows workers in protective clothing pulling a yellow body bag onto a trolley and unzipping it to find the person was still alive.
"Alive, did you see that? Alive!" one worker is heard saying.
Authorities in the Shanghai district of Putuo confirmed the incident in a statement on Monday, saying an investigation had been launched.
It said four officials and the director of the Shanghai Xinchangzheng Welfare Hospital had been either sacked or reprimanded.
A doctor involved has also had their medical licence revoked.
The elderly resident has been transferred to hospital and is in a stable condition, authorities said.
The aged care home has apologised for the incident.
Lockdown plagued with issues
State media commentator Xijin Hu expressed his shock on Weibo.
"This is serious dereliction of duty, and it is [a] disregard for human life," the post said.
Other Weibo users said that the incident is "just the tip of the iceberg" in a city that has been under one of the world's strictest COVID-19 lockdowns.
"This reveals thoroughly the problems in Shanghai," another post said.
Shanghai — China's largest city — has been under an extreme lockdown for five weeks in an attempt to stamp out an Omicron outbreak.
Most of the city's 25 million residents are either locked in their apartments, compounds or their workplace with no date announced for release.
Many people confined to their homes are suffering from food shortages and long delays for deliveries, while waiting for the government to distribute necessities.
Authorities are also continuing to force COVID-positive residents from their homes and place them in crowded mass quarantine centres with poor conditions, as part of a political directive to get cases down to zero.
It is not clear if Shanghai is turning a corner in its campaign against the virus.
The government reported 260 confirmed cases in Shanghai on May 3 and 16 deaths.
A period of no new cases is a key condition for a more significant relaxation of curbs.
