Vincent, your points are absolutely valid and it was wrong to attack Irene for sharing her experiences. And to be honest, my first reaction was also anger, but then when I re-read the piece, it was actually quite on point. The essence was in the headline - COVID RULES DON'T SINGLE OUT FOREIGNERS. This is absolutely true. The Covid rules apply equally to everyone.
However, the timing of the article may have been off. Especially since a lot of expats are frustrated with the Covid rules (I moved to Shanghai from Beijing in December, and have been going through the lockdown since April). This frustration, in my opinion, is also misplaced, since the same "frustrated" expats were not complaining in 2020 and 2021 when the rest of the world was going through lockdowns, while we were all traipsing around like nothing was wrong. But that's a different conversation.
I believe that the timing and message of Irene's article was off because it was a slap in the face of the discrimination and xenophobia foreigners face FROM PEOPLE, not from the Covid rules. The slew of angry comments came from that spot. Perhaps a way to address that emotion might be to do a piece on that.
And of course, we all owe an apology to Irene for belittling her experiences, which were about COVID RULES, and not outright discrimination from the people.