China has deployed robotic dogs to enforce the communist country’s COVID-19 “zero-COVID” strategy.
In a video filmed in Shanghai City, a robot dog is seen warning a locked-down community to stay in their houses and comply with COVID “safety” measures.
A robot dog patrols the empty streets of Shanghai in China with a loudspeaker as a reminder of sanitary measures‼️The authorities have introduced containment of the country's economic capital after identifying several thousand cases in recent days☝🤔🙏👇👇 pic.twitter.com/v2gun6SsIG
— Sophia Dahl (@sophiadahl1) March 31, 2022
“Wear a mask, wash hands frequently, check temperature,” the dog cautions while patrolling the residential neighborhood.
On Monday, China began instituting its biggest city-wide lockdown since unleashing the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 to curb the spread of Omicron.
“Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended,” New York Post reports. “Panic-buying was reported on Sunday, with supermarket shelves cleared of food, beverages and household items. Additional barriers were being erected in neighborhoods Monday, with workers in hazmat suits staffing checkpoints.”
The Chinese government is also building “makeshift hospitals,” temporary medical facilities and quarantine centers to accommodate surging infections among its predominantly fully vaccinated population.
As of March 29, approximately 87 percent of China’s 1.4 billion people have been vaccinated with two shots, Bloomberg reports.
