SinoInsight 1
Sun Chunlan, a Politburo member and PRC State Council vice-premier, met with authorities in Wuhan tasked with investigating the coronavirus outbreak on the morning of Feb. 6. Sun instructed Wuhan City investigators to carry out meticulous (“don’t miss a single household or person,” “不落一戶、不漏一人”) door-to-door checks to identify “four categories” of people—patients who are confirmed coronavirus cases, suspected patients, patients running a temperature who cannot be ruled out for viral infection, and close contacts of confirmed patients. City investigators are required to take the temperature of the “four categories” of people, inquire about their close contacts, and arrange for them to be sent to quarantine centers and designated medical institutions as soon as possible.
On Feb. 8, Sun Chunlan led a central government group to guide the epidemic control work in Hubei Province, state mouthpiece Xinhua reported. According to the report, Sun instructed the authorities in Hubei and Wuhan to take measures to centrally manage the “four categories” of people and demanded that as many of them should be rounded up as possible (“not one person should be missed,” “不漏一人”). The Xinhua report also noted that the central government guidance group had mobilized over 11,000 medical staff nationwide and 20 central-level medical rescue teams to support the epidemic control efforts in Wuhan. The Wuhan authorities had also constructed three so-called “square cabin hospitals” (方艙醫院, or compartmentalized field hospitals) with 4,000 beds each that will focus on treating patients that show mild symptoms of the coronavirus. The report said that the authorities will step up the requisitioning of hotels, training centers, Party schools, and college dormitories to be used as sites for the centralized treatment and quarantine of infected patients.
On Feb. 9, the Hubei provincial health commission claimed that there were a total of 27,100 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Hubei as of Feb. 8, including 14,982 cases in Wuhan. The coronavirus caused 780 deaths in the province (2.88 percent fatality rate), with 608 cases in Wuhan (4.06 percent fatality rate).
OUR TAKE
1. The stringent inspection and quarantine of the “four categories” of people in Wuhan ordered by the central government is an extreme measure that appears to be geared more towards “stability maintenance” than public healthcare.
First, the “don’t miss a single household or person” policy will likely do more to raise the risks of the coronavirus spreading than contain the epidemic. The household inspection staff will come into contact with a large number of Wuhan citizens every day for a week or more (see point 2). Given the shortage of protective clothing in Wuhan and elsewhere in mainland China, it is impossible for the inspection staff to change into a fresh set of protective clothing every time they encounter infected persons. Whether the inspection staff are issued proper protective clothing is also an issue. And should infected persons leave residue on the protective clothing of the inspection staff, the staff could become walking “super spreaders” of the coronavirus.
Second, household inspection staff will likely cause more stress, grief, and panic for Wuhan residents as opposed to restoring calm, which is important in a public healthcare emergency. Already, there are videos circulating of inspection staff forcibly evicting residents from their apartments and residents putting up spirited resistance.
Third, the quarantine of the “four categories” of people benefits the CCP’s effort to maintain stability and contain the spread of the coronavirus, but does little to improve the health of the infected. Pictures and videos of some quarantine facilities show patients housed in open floor conditions without individual isolation. A video on Chinese social media shows a medical staff dissuading a patient from checking into a “square cabin hospitals”; the medical staff explained that the “square cabin hospitals” are meant solely for quarantine and will not provide medical treatment for patients.
It should not be surprising that the CCP would prioritize “stability maintenance” in its epidemic control work instead of putting the people’s health foremost. It is characteristic of the CCP not to cherish the lives of the people and take the worst option in making policies; the death of tens of millions of Chinese during the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward is an example.
2. In an interview with state broadcaster CCTV on Jan. 27, Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang said that 9 million people remain in Wuhan after the lockdown. Wuhan has 108 sub-district offices, 21 towns, and 15 townships, including 1,107 community residents’ committees and 2,033 village communities. That is to say, each community administrative organization needs to inspect at least 2,866 people and 700 households (presuming four people per household) on average. Assuming that each household cooperates peacefully with the household inspection staff, inspections could take over a week to complete by conservative estimates.
However, the Wuhan household inspection staff will unlikely to find their job easy. Wuhan residents are finding it harder to ensure their basic survival, popular grievances are growing, and panic continues to spread. It is inevitable that some residents will refuse to cooperate with city investigators, and there will be more conflicts between the people and officials. To cope with the situation, the CCP will need to deploy more “stability maintenance” forces to Wuhan and require even more protective equipment to be sent there. Ultimately, the “don’t miss a single household or person” policy could amount to nothing; large numbers of residents could become non-cooperative or find ways to evade inspection staff, and inspection staff unwilling to put their lives at risk could end up faking inspections.
3. At the time of writing, the CCP claims that there are only 14,982 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Wuhan. Yet the central and local authorities have taken actions disproportionate to the purported situation on the ground:
- Wuhan has been placed under complete lockdown since Jan. 23;
- While there are already 180,000 medical staff in Wuhan, the central government still saw a need to gather over 11,000 medical staff from all over China to dispatch to Wuhan;
- A stringent “don’t miss a single household or person” inspection and quarantine policy is being implemented.
Additionally, reports in overseas Chinese language media and information being circulated on social media claim that there is still a severe shortage of medical staff in Wuhan as many of the staff became infected. There are also reports that funeral house furnaces are being operated for 24 hours a day with over 300 bodies cremated daily.
In putting together anecdotal information, news reports, and official claims, it can be inferred that the epidemic situation in Wuhan at least is extremely serious.
4. We believe that the CCP will only cause more panic and aggravate the public health emergency in Wuhan and elsewhere in mainland China with its “stability maintenance-first” approach to dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.
The “not one person should be missed” inspection and quarantine policy affirms a prediction in our China 2020 outlook, namely, “we do not rule out the possibility that the PRC will use unethical means to contain the spread of the diseases and eliminate the epidemics.”
SinoInsight 2
Recently, local governments in mainland China have been seizing or withholding surgical masks and other medical supplies, according to mainland media reports and posts on social media.
On January 29, the PRC State Council issued an urgent notice requesting that local governments at all levels “not withhold or transfer medical supplies” regardless of the excuse.
On Feb. 1, Dali City in Yunnan Province withheld 598 cases containing 112,00 surgical masks that were bound for Cixi City, Zhejiang Province on grounds that “the epidemic is severe and supplies are scarce.” On the same day, Cixi City sent an agreement letter to Dali City requesting that the latter city send over the withheld surgical masks as soon as possible.
On Feb. 2, Dali City withheld nearly 600 cases of surgical masks that were passing through the city from neighboring Ruili City to Chongqing City on the pretext of “implementing an emergency expropriation according to the law.” Chongqing sent a letter to Dali the following day asking for the hundreds of thousands of masks that Dali had seized, but the masks had already been distributed and could not be recovered.
On Feb. 4, Qingdao City in Shangdong Province notified its customs to seize medical protective gear that was passing through from South Korea to Shenyang City in Liaoning Province on the grounds that the Shenyang customs had recently seized imported materials bound for Qingdao.
On Feb. 6, Mengzi County in Yunnan Province withheld large numbers of surgical masks bound for Liucheng County in Guangxi Province. On the same day, Dali City in Yunnan Province intercepted hundreds of boxes of masks bound for Huangshi City in Hubei (an area hit hard by the coronavirus) and Chongqing City.
According to widely circulated information on the Chinese internet, the Jinjiang municipal government in Sichuan Province had reportedly sent an escort of armored vehicles and over 30 heavily armed riot police to oversee the transfer of 300,000 surgical masks into the district from neighboring Bazhong City on Feb. 6. However, the surgical mask delivery was intercepted by dozens of police vehicles from Sichuan’s Mianyang City, who took 200,000 of the 300,000 masks bound for Jinjiang District. The Mianyang City police were in turn ambushed by public security forces from Jintang County, but they managed to escape the attempted robbery.
OUR TAKE
1. While tragi-comic in some cases, the efforts made by local governments to seize medical supplies from each other highlight three things.
First, local governments are panicking in mainland China due to the opacity of information about the epidemic and the spread of the coronavirus in various places outside Wuhan.
Second, there is a huge shortage of medical supplies in China and supply cannot keep up with demand.
Third, the central government is already losing control over the local governments in this public crisis.
2. On Jan. 23, PRC Ministry of Industry and Information Technology head Miao Wei said while on an inspection tour of surgical mask companies in Tianjin that China’s maximum surgical mask production capacity is about 20 million pieces each day. According to official data, the daily output of surgical masks in 22 major provinces in China is 14.806 million pieces (production has been affected by city shutdowns and an extended Spring Festival holiday).
Presently, many cities and communities in China are under lockdown and have implemented quarantine measures. Local authorities even require those who walk in the streets to wear a mask. Already, there are many videos circulating on social media of Chinese citizens being abused and beaten up by government officials or other citizens for walking about in public places without wearing a mask.
The central government requires all workers who go return to work from holiday on Feb. 10 to wear surgical masks. A shortage of masks will seriously affect the resumption of work in China. This will seriously impact China’s economy and global supply chains.
Given China’s huge population and the surgical mask requirements, it will be difficult for supply to meet demand even after China’s surgical mask production reverts back to maximum capacity.
3. On paper, the CCP’s authoritarian system seems well-suited to handle a public healthcare crisis like the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. Reality paints a different picture.
The central government requires local governments to implement its epidemic control policies. However, the central government does not have much leverage over local governments because it is unable to provide medical supplies to local governments in need. Thus, local governments are forced to rob each other and fend for themselves.
The local government and inadequate supplies problem is further compounded by the central government’s lack of transparency on the coronavirus outbreak. Lack of transparency creates panic and inspires local governments to illegally hoard medical material and other supplies and exacerbate the epidemic crisis.
We believe that the central government could eventually be forced to use the military to maintain order and “persuade” local governments to behave and follow central government instructions instead of carrying out rogue actions.
