Shanghai ’s delivery couriers have become a valuable lifeline inside the Covid-19 -hit Chinese metropolis, as they transport without fail essential supplies to various locked-down communities and homebound residents across the city of 25 million inhabitants. The Chinese financial hub, which started a two-stage lockdown and mass testing programme on Monday, has seen a surge in usage of on-demand local services apps like Meituan and Ele.me amid the municipal government’s efforts to stop an outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron variant from worsening. Although much in demand, couriers like 55-year-old Wang Weixin, who works for Ele.me, must contend with uneven waiting times at stores before making their deliveries. Ele.me is a unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding , owner of the South China Morning Post . “I need to wait at least 15 minutes for an order to be ready for delivery, sometimes it can even extend to more than one hour,” said Wang, as he waited outside a local pharmacy for an order to be delivered. “While people are buying more, there are only a few stores open. So we have to wait if the staff inside a store can’t get the orders ready in time.” “The delivery is much easier now,” he said, pointing to an empty street inside a residential area in Huangpu district – the seat of Shanghai’s municipal government and the most central part of the eastern city’s 16 districts. Instead of making door-to-door deliveries, couriers primarily put the orders in a designated spot at a community’s gateway, as part of efforts to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. While Shanghai has been seen as a model of China’s coronavirus controls throughout the pandemic, the fast-spreading Omicron variant has put that reputation to the test. The latest outbreak in the city was caused by management oversight at a quarantine hotel earlier this month, according to local authorities. This outbreak, however, also shines a light on how important the digitisation of everyday life in China has become, as people inside locked-down communities try to meet their essential needs online through various mobile apps. Still, normal delivery capability in Shanghai has been affected by the latest Covid-19 restrictions, according to six couriers from Meituan and Ele.me who spoke to the Post . All of them have also been locked down in their communities at least once during the city’s latest outbreak. Under Shanghai’s split lockdown strategy, residents of Puxi on the west side of the Huangpu River still have two more days to sort out essential supplies before restrictions are implemented. The situation has led to panic buying , as residents lined up outside supermarkets and groceries to buy what they can. Getting fresh groceries online has become difficult across the city in the past few weeks. Many residents have resorted to waking up early in the day to quickly make their orders on grocery delivery apps and then click the “buy” button for a couple of minutes in hopes of successfully purchasing fresh supplies like tomatoes, green vegetables and meats. A frequent user of grocery delivery platforms Meituan Maicai and Alibaba’s Freshippo , 43-year-old Shanghai resident Ren Xiaowen said she now has no recourse but to queue outside a nearby supermarket to get fresh food supplies for her family. “It has become very hard to get fresh food on online platforms,” she said. Other residents have just given up on getting fresh supplies and turned to alternatives like instant noodles. Wang Xiaoru, a saleswoman at a property firm who works from home, said: “It takes great effort to buy fresh groceries, so we quit.” Local authorities have recently assured that there would be enough fresh food supplies. Li Qiang , a member of the Politburo of China’s Communist Party and current Party Committee Secretary of Shanghai, said on Monday that resources will be made available to ensure that demand and delivery of food will be stable throughout the city. People tend to buy more fresh supplies, instead of ordering cooked food, according to the couriers the Post interviewed. As a result, couriers for Meituan and Ele.me who mostly deliver cooked food have more spare time waiting for orders, while those with grocery delivery platforms Meituan Maicai and Alibaba’s Freshippo are now mostly fully booked. In response, Ele.me said it has cooperated with major fresh-food merchants to increase its delivery capability. In locked-down areas like Pudong, located east of the Huangpu River, delivery couriers will prioritise orders for groceries and medicine, according to Ele.me. Meituan has increased its supply of fresh groceries and other essential resources like facial masks, according to a company statement on Tuesday. It also said couriers will be provided with free hotel accommodation if they cannot return to their flats because of pandemic control measures. Shanghai recently started allowing couriers to leave a locked-down community as long as they carry a valid proof of work. The situation on the ground, however, remains on a case-to-case basis in each local neighbourhood, according to delivery couriers. While demand for their services has soared in Shanghai and other cities across China, delivery couriers find themselves fighting to survive in an industry that has been stingy with labour protections. Gig worker Li Wei, 23, said he was locked down for nearly a month in his community before receiving his delivery man green pass to start working on Monday. Li said the food delivery platforms did not pay couriers extra during the outbreak. There is also no compensation if they get locked down in a community and cannot perform their job. “Recently, I can barely make enough money … Food delivery is really not a job that [provides] assurance,” Li said. “I could make around 12,000 yuan (US$1,883) a month in the best of times.” For Chen Hao, a delivery courier in his 30s who lives in a dormitory with five colleagues, being under lockdown earlier this month meant no pay. “You don’t have any income if you can’t go out and deliver food,” Chen said. “I’m not sure if we could go out and deliver food [when Puxi locks down]. If my community says no, then there is nothing we can do.”