Under partial or full lockdowns, tens of millions of people in at least 30 places have been told to stay home.

“We haven’t had any flour, rice, or eggs for 15 days. We’ve been out of milk for kids for days “said one resident in western Xinjiang.

Before the Communist party’s congress in October, the government is working hard to stop local outbreaks.

China’s “zero-Covid” policy calls for strict lockdowns, even if there are only a few cases. On Monday, China found 949 more cases of Covid all over the country.

A small number of people have spoken out against the policy, and it has also been said to slow down economic growth.

In Xinjiang, residents of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture near the border with Kazakhstan have been locked down for weeks, which has made them desperate. They have used social media to ask for help.

One post had a video of an emotional Uyghur man saying that his three kids hadn’t eaten in three days.

In Yining City, the capital of Ili, there was a widely shared online document with more than 300 urgent requests for food, medicine, and sanitary pads.

“I don’t have any money left to buy things. My wife is expecting, and we already have two children. We’re about to run out of gas. My wife needs to see a doctor, “Added another person.

There are Han Chinese, Kazakh, and Uyghur people living in the area.

A long-awaited UN report came out earlier this month. It said that Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang were victims of “serious human rights violations” by China. Rights groups say that more than a million Uyghurs have been held against their will. Beijing says that the network of camps it has set up is a way to fight terrorism.

In Guizhou province, which is in the south-western part of China, the government locked down an area of the provincial capital, Guiyang, without warning. This left 500,000 people at home with no time to get ready.

The Guardian newspaper said that lifts were turned off to stop people from leaving.

“We can’t shop online because they don’t deliver and the grocery stores are closed. Are we being treated like animals by the government, or do they just want us to die? “The Guardian said that one user on the microblogging site Weibo asked this question.

The capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu, is the biggest city to be locked down since Shanghai was for two months earlier this year.

No one is allowed to enter or leave the city, and only residents who can show proof of a negative Covid test are allowed out to buy necessities.

It comes after a very hot spell in the area and an earthquake earlier this month, when people tried to leave their homes but found the doors locked.

The city says that starting on Monday, restrictions will be lifted in five parts of the city.

Multiple long-term lockdowns are happening before the National Party Congress, which will take place in the middle of October. This is a once-every-five-years event where top political members will meet for the first time since the pandemic.

The people in charge of the party are under a lot of pressure to make sure everything goes well, and even small groups of Covid are seen as a threat.

On Monday, Chinese media reported that a small number of cases were being found as students from other provinces returned to Beijing universities.

It is the last major economy in the world to try to stop all Covid outbreaks. They say this is necessary to stop the virus from spreading and flooding hospitals.

Johns Hopkins University says that less than 15,000 people have died in China since the pandemic started.