Violinist leaps to death in Shanghai Covid lockdown

The war in Ukraine has obscured the suffering of 25 million residents of Shanghai, who have been locked in their apartments for almost three weeks under a draconian Covid lockdown that many consider excessive.

The handful of deaths that are being reported are not from the disease, so much as from the restrictions.

Chen Shunping, a violinist in the Shanghai Pops Orchestra, jumped to his death from his apartment window after several hospital emergency departments refused to treat him, citing Covid restrictions.

Chen, 71, was in agonies from acute pancreatitis. Not to treat a man such a condition is a breach of the Hippocratic oath.

Chen left a note saying ‘I couldn’t stand the pain.’

His death is reported in The Strad.