I dunno, one of the stronger sentiments seems to be "the Shanghai government is fucking this up, we need the central government to take over and fix this".
It is my opinion as well. If you look at other cities, they all followed the zero-covid policy while Shanghai's official was declaring the city will not lock down for a few days or a week to get over the virus, instead, she insists there has only been one severe case, ignoring the numbers from all other countries (0.1% death rate). That's why I believe if they have acted properly at the beginning, the lockdown can start a week earlier and finish 4 weeks earlier.
I have heard this line a fair few times as well (not taking a stance in terms of whether it is factually true or not) and it is in my experience fairly common among supporters of authoritarian systems. Given that the leadership is largely (if not entirely) infallible, clearly it was the execution of their orders that was flawed and the fix should be to give them further power and prune some underlings. Rinse, repeat, and the system survives.
Look at a TV “audience” with Putin and you will see the very same pattern.
Same thing in Nazi Germany. The Fuhrer was considered to be above party politics and the anti-semitic actions of the nazi state. Of course he wasn’t, but its a tried and true tactic I guess.