(Yicai Global) April 14 -- Shanghai’s younger residents are helping senior citizens in their neighborhoods to shop online for groceries and other essentials during the city's longer-than-expected lockdown, as the elderly can be less familiar with smartphones and e-commerce.

For example, those au fait with internet shopping and group-buying platforms have been checking in with older neighbors to see if they need help buying vegetables and daily necessities in WeChat groups set up for people living in one Jiangsu Road community, Yicai Global learned.

Online orders and deliveries have become a necessity as China's most populous city has entered its third week of a phased lockdown because of rising Covid-19 case numbers. Shanghai also has one of the highest shares of senior citizens among Chinese cities. About 5.8 million of its permanent residents are aged over 60, making up 23 percent of the total, according to official data.

Some 70 percent of all 200 households in one South Shaanxi Road community in Huangpu district are senior citizens, a resident called Chen Yirong told Yicia Global, who added that outside help is needed as the local neighborhood does not have enough younger people to support the elderly.

In another neighborhood of the same district, a volunteer group in a high-rise residential block has been asking elderly neighbors about what they need and will arrange deliveries of vegetables, rice, noodles, and edible oils for them, according to one of the team members.

And every delivery is a chance for doing good. Yu Li, who lives in a large community in Jing'an district, heard about two elderly households in the same block. After receiving a group-buying order, she shared her vegetables with them.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi