(Article by C. Douglas Golden republished from WesternJournal.com)

In a viral video that’s been watched over 1.5 million times as of Wednesday morning, an elderly woman being forced to take a COVID swab test by an individual in a hazmat suit fights the health worker off with a stick.

While it’s unclear where and when the video was shot, the footage comes as a series of draconian lockdowns have been imposed in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

(Here at The Western Journal, we’ve been opposed to all lockdowns since the beginning of the pandemic — and now that we’re approaching something resembling normalcy, we’ll continue to hold politicians that robbed us of our freedom to account. You can help us by subscribing.)

Again, little is known about the provenance of the video. Although one widely viewed version of it was posted by Twitter user @ileana_altman on Friday.

She's my HERO pic.twitter.com/T5wLZ1EmjL

— Ileana A (@ileana_altman) April 15, 2022

Actor James Woods also tweeted Ileana’s video, noting, “Heroes come in all sizes.”

Heroes come in all sizes. pic.twitter.com/x0L4FC5aIM

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) April 17, 2022

Others praised the elderly woman:

She's saying if you want my DNA yours will be on the ground as well.

— vi (@phrf198) April 17, 2022

We all need sticks! May God bless her.

— Caz (@cats4me21) April 18, 2022

I don't know who she is but I love her.

— Crystal (@Crystalh_733) April 18, 2022

The best information on who the woman was or where the video originated comes from Spanish news agency EFE, which confirmed the footage was from China.

“The detection of just one case can lead to the forced confinement of hundreds of people in a single residential building. In other cases, shopping malls and schools have been forced into lockdown until all contacts have undergone a PCR test,” a March 29 EFE report read.

“While PCR tests are readily available in urban areas, in rural settings things get more complicated and the population can be reticent to comply with protocol, as illustrated by a another recent video in which an elderly woman who starts beating a health worker with a cane as they try get ready to collect a sample.”

As for what happened after the cameras stopped rolling — well, one shudders to think. One hopes her self-defense paid off.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen from the footage from Shanghai — where the lockdown has been felt the most acutely — officials, unfortunately, end up winning these battles and winning them decisively.

Speechless ... #shanghai #???? #lockdown pic.twitter.com/e9cycgormO

— Sebastian@?? (@SebastianBorn) April 14, 2022

#ShanghaiLockdown: every damn day.

Honestly, isn’t this just as inhumane as any war?

Yet no public outcry, no sanctions. The world is ? mute.

Is the entire civilised western world dependent on ?? China?pic.twitter.com/zdP0mGnsxj

— ?? ?????f???? ?? (@iSassafras) April 14, 2022

#dogs aren't spared in #chinalockdown#China #Covid_19 #Shanghai #lockdown #arrested #Quarantine #jail pic.twitter.com/StKOfDx9FF

— Harry Spencer (@H_B_Spencer) April 13, 2022

massive lockdowns in Shanghai, china ?!!?WTF #Shanghai #COVID19 #coronavirus #censorship #lockdown #Covid_19 pic.twitter.com/eVMepZtptg

— Dr Charrat mohammed rochd (@DrRochd) April 15, 2022

The lockdowns are part of China’s “zero COVID” policy, which has sought to prevent outbreaks of any sort by sealing its borders and confining residents to their homes.

Groceries and other supplies have reportedly grown scarce and, despite the potential consequences from a government not known to tolerate dissent — gladly or otherwise — protests have broken out in the city.

Thousands of residents in the Pudong district of #Shanghai, China broke out of their homes to protest the Communist-mandated lockdown. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/fj2ZFMDJhF

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) April 17, 2022

“Food shortages have forced some residents to resort to bartering. A barrage of criticism of the authorities’ response to the crisis has left the normally efficient internet censors unable to keep up,” the U.K. Guardian reported Sunday.

“Online, many residents are not only questioning the way the outbreak is being dealt with, but also Beijing’s official narrative, which emphasizes the collective good. Footage of localized protests have been uploaded to Chinese social media. They have been taken down by the censors, but have reappeared on western platforms such as Twitter and Facebook – both of which are blocked in China.”

Whether the sight of an elderly woman fighting back against a forced swab test the only way she could — with her stick — somehow manages to arouse both awareness and anger at the situation in Shanghai and the rest of China remains to be seen.

However, there’s something we ought to remember in all of this:

There are millions of Americans who admire and envy how the Chinese government is handling Shanghai.

— Andrew David (@rip242) April 17, 2022

Perhaps not as harshly, no. But there are still millions of people who believe we still need to be living like it’s March of 2020. Just look at the freak-out over the lifting of the mask mandate on airplanes, for example.

If you want to know where a perpetual war on COVID would lead, just watch this video. It may not look this bad in America, but it still won’t be pretty.

Read more at: WesternJournal.com