Hong Kong (CNN) For the citizens of northwest China's Xi'an, the beginning of the year feels like 2020 and things are only going to get worse.
Since December last year, Xi'an has seen the country's largest community outbreak since Wuhan, where the COVID-19 pandemic began.
To date, more than 1,600 infections have been reported. A figure that seems small compared to other countries has pushed China's number of infections in the final week of last year to its highest since March 2020.
13 million residents have been waiting at home for 12 days since December 24th. The tourist-filled town greeted the New Year with empty streets, shuttered shops, closed residential areas, and empty airports.
Xi'an's lockdown will be the most severe and extensive since the blockade of Wuhan in early 2020. Wuhan targeted 11 million residents.
But the blockade of Xi'an is also the most chaotic one. Residents are running out of food and other basic necessities, affecting access to medical services.
The growing anger and frustration with local governments highlights the challenge of China's zero-corona policy. The policy seeks to prevent the virus from re-emerging by enforcing mass testing, lengthy quarantines and immediate lockdowns.
For nearly two years, these draconian measures have shielded much of China from the worst of the pandemic and have gained overwhelming public support. But as infections sprout across the country, the growing outrage in Xi'an has cast doubt on how long the zero-corona policy can be sustained going forward.
Last week, Chinese social media was flooded with posts criticizing Xi'an's inadequate response and asking for help. Streaming broadcasts of news conferences held by local governments about the new coronavirus were flooded with comments asking for food, forcing the authorities to suspend the comment function.
Even with these authorities' censorship, the issue of Xi'an continues to attract public attention. On Weibo, China's version of Twitter, the hashtag "It's hard to buy groceries in Xi'an" has been viewed more than 380 million times as of Thursday.
There are many cases in which residents who did not buy food regret after receiving repeated calls from local governments that there is a sufficient supply of food and there is no need to panic buy.
For the first few days after the lockdown began, one designated person from each household was allowed to go out to buy groceries once every two days. However, as the number of infected people increased, people were required to stay at home unless they went out for large-scale testing.
One Weibo comment wrote, "I used to think panic buying people were stupid. Now I know I'm stupid."