Shanghai faces mental health crisis as covid lockdown drags on

Helena Tao relies on a regimen of five pills a day to deal with the extreme mood swings brought on by her bipolar disorder. Then came Shanghai’s lockdown.

The 22-year-old college student living in the city’s Baoshan district didn’t think to stockpile medication — after all, she was told the lockdown would last only four days — and by mid-April, she was running out of her pills.