Shanghai official defends brutal policy of separating Covid-positive babies and children from their parents

• Shanghai has defended a policy of separating Covid-positive babies and children from their parents.
• It is key to virus "prevention and control work," a Shanghai health official told reporters.

A Shanghai official has defended a controversial policy of separating Covid-positive babies and children from their parents as the city struggles to contain a surge in cases.

The policy is key to virus "prevention and control work," Wu Qianyu, an official from the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, told reporters at a press conference on Monday.

"We have made it clear that children whose parents are also positive can live in the same place as the children," she added. However, uninfected parents must remain separated from their children.

"If the child is younger than seven, they will receive treatment in a public health center. For older children or teenagers, we are mainly isolating them in centralized quarantine facilities."

China's strict rules mean that anyone who is Covid-positive — including young children — must be isolated from those who are not infected.

There has been outrage in the city after videos circulating online appeared to show screaming toddlers being left unattended at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center. In a statement to The New York Times, the center did not deny that children were being separated from their Covid-infected parents and confirmed that the videos and images were real.

On China's Twitter-like platform Weibo, the hashtag "Shanghai Health Commission responds on how to treat children infected with Covid" has been viewed more than 82 million times.

"The authorities have not made any concessions. Can they not hear the public's outcry?" one Weibo user wrote.

On Saturday, a Chinese mother named Esther Zhao told Reuters her toddler had been sent to a COVID-19 isolation facility in the district of Jinshan, and that she had not received any photos of her daughter since she last saw her on March 26.

"There have been no photos at all... I'm so anxious, I have no idea what situation my daughter is in," said Zhao, per the outlet.

On Monday, Shanghai reported 268 symptomatic Covid cases and a record 13,086 asymptomatic cases, according to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission. The city's 26 million people remain locked down with no end to the restrictions in sight, AFP said.