Workers built metal gates outside apartments to keep residents from leaving as a brutal Covid-19 lockdown was enforced in Communist China.

Video taken in Shanghai on April 24 evening shows the builders wearing hazmat suits and constructing a green gate just outside the apartment's entrance. Tenant Bruce Jay said the structure was installed to block everyone inside from going out while the city continues to grapple with the latest Covid-19 outbreak.

Shanghai, China’s commercial centre and a major transport hub, was locked down after an outbreak of infections that started in March.

Community party health officials said there have been 138 total deaths due to the recent outbreak as of April 24. They added 16,983 people were asymptomatic while 2,472 were symptomatic.

Paranoid authorities initially implemented a staggered lockdown in Shanghai on March 28, dividing the densely populated city in half and enforcing different restrictions in each area. The quarantine was supposed to end on April 5, but has now been extended indefinitely over the entirety of Shanghai.

Most residents are not allowed to leave their homes even for essential goods, relying instead on rations doled out by government officials.

Despite its neighbours in the region learning to live with the virus, China has maintained its flawed zero-Covid approach. It has enforced severe lockdowns aimed at purging Covid-19 from the country.