BEIJING (AP) The U.S. has ordered all non-emergency consular staff to leave Shanghai, which is under a tight lockdown to contain a COVID-19 surge.

Many residents in the city of 26 million have been confined to their homes for up to three weeks as China maintains its zero-COVID strategy of handling outbreaks with strict isolation and mass testing.

But people living under the restrictions have described an increasingly desperate situation, with families unable to leave their homes or obtain food and daily necessities, while people who test positive for the coronavirus have been forced into mass quarantine centers where conditions at times have been called crowded and unsanitary.