Local authorities are determined to snuff it out so that it will not mar the prestige of the Winter Olympics next month, and to avoid turning the upcoming Spring Festival - where millions will be moving across the country - into a super spreader event. But it has also shown how China's standard playbook of enforcing a hard lockdown combined with mass testing can exact a messy, harsh human cost. Since stricter rules came into force preventing people from leaving their homes to buy food, anxious residents have said on social media that their supplies have run low, with some resorting to bartering mobile phones for food.