In 'zero-Covid' China, a daughter's struggle to get her father medicine hits a nerve

A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

(CNN)What was meant to be a simple errand, a daughter driving her aging father to the hospital to pick up his medicine, has pulled a small city on China's border with North Korea -- and its nearly two-month Covid-19 lockdown -- into the national spotlight, after the pair ran afoul of pandemic rules.

Video of the scene -- whose related hashtag has been viewed over a billion times on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo -- shows a confrontation between the driver, identified by police as a 41-year-old woman surnamed Hao, her father and a local police officer, who stopped Hao at a security checkpoint because she did not have proper clearance.

In the video, shot in the northeastern city of Dandong, Hao has gotten out of her car and can be heard yelling -- with palpable angst -- that she already took a Covid-19 test, and that her housing community gave her permission to leave to go the hospital to pick up the medicine.