Locked-down Shanghai residents barter for what money can’t buy

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a volunteer uses a megaphone to talk to residents at an apartment building in Shanghai, China. — Xinhua via AP

For many of Shanghai’s 25 million residents, the city’s strict Covid lockdown has made procuring food and daily necessities a struggle money can’t resolve. They’re resorting instead to bartering, trading neighbours ice cream for vegetables or wine for cake.

The availability of many goods in Shanghai has been strained by clogged logistics into the city and the lack of couriers to deliver supplies to locals barred from leaving their homes. The city’s sweeping restrictions on movement, aimed at stymieing the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant, are now entering their third week.