BEIJING —When Shanghai began its draconian COVID-19 lockdown two months ago, the French restaurant where Sun Wu waited tables closed and the 22-year-old, like countless other rural migrants, lost his job.
To make ends meet, Sun helped sort deliveries for residents under lockdown, earning 250 yuan ($38) a day and moving from a dormitory to live in the warehouse where he worked as required by COVID-19 rules.
Three weeks in, however, he had to leave the warehouse. His girlfriend, a migrant worker who had staffed the front desk at the same restaurant, needed urgent medical care.
With ambulance services stretched, Sun paid a delivery van driver 500 yuan ($74) to take them to a hospital on April 25 and she had surgery to remove a stomach cyst that night….