The Chinese Communist Party announced that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak had begun to wane in its province of origin, Hubei, and planned to lift some lockdown restrictions on Wednesday, but backed down from that announcement nearly immediately.
Communist dictator Xi Jinping visited Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, on Tuesday, in an attempt to assure the world that the outbreak had peaked in the city that brought it to the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global pandemic 24 hours after the Communist Party insisted the virus was officially under control in China.
“Xi personally commands the people’s war against the epidemic. He has been paying constant attention to the epidemic prevention and control work and made oral or written instructions every day,” the Global Times, a Chinese state propaganda outlet, asserted on Tuesday. “[Xi] is sending a strong signal to the entire country and the world that China is ascending out of the darkest moment amid the outbreak, and the battle against the epidemic has now entered the next stage, analysts said.”
Xinhua, the Chinese Communist Party news agency, quoted Xi as saying that the outbreak “has basically been curbed” in Wuhan and in Hubei generally.
“Xi said after hard work, the situation in Hubei and Wuhan has shown positive changes with important progress, but the prevention and control task remains arduous,” Xinhua reported.
While Xi emphasized a return to normalcy in state propaganda covering his visit to Wuhan, reports from within the city revealed heightened security protocol in the city, including keeping Wuhan residents in their homes at gunpoint, not simply to contain viral infection, but to prevent any potential heckling or protests from locals who the government failed to warn of the outbreak for over a month while it was spreading.
Shortly after Xi’s visit, Hubei communist authorities released a new plan to restore productivity in the province’s factories. Hubei announced that manufacturers and distributors of essential goods, particularly medical supplies, would allegedly return to work this week while all other industries would be encouraged to reboot manufacturing on March 20.
“As the rest of the global economy is increasingly gripped by fears of the outbreak, China’s getting back to economic normality offers much-needed comfort,” Chinese communist news agency Xinhua declared on Thursday. “Noting that the country has been trying to manage a balancing act between containing the epidemic and reviving the economy, analysts and business insiders of many countries have expressed their cautious optimism that the Chinese economy will be left unscathed in the long run.”
Xinhua insisted that the virus “has been basically contained in China.”
China’s National Health Commission made an official announcement declaring similarly that “the peak of the current outbreak … is over.” The commission noted that viral infection had slowed in every part of Hubei except for Wuhan, a sign that the virus may be running out of locals to infect, not that China successfully protected the population from the virus.
Some parts of Hubei further away from Wuhan attempted to lift their lockdowns and work bans completely, resulting in chaos and failure. In Qianjiang, the city with the lowest number of coronavirus cases in Hubei, authorities announced that lockdown provisions would end at 10 a.m. local time Wednesday. As the South China Morning Post notes, that policy lasted half an hour before the lockdown came into effect again:
“The city will continue its restrictions on the movement of traffic and residents,” the government said, without elaborating.
About two hours later, the Hubei government issued a statement outlining the different restrictions that applied to each city within the province based on their particular situation.
And unfortunately for the people of Qianjiang, despite having the lowest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 of any city in Hubei, the provincial authority classed it as “high risk” and ruled that all public transport would remain suspended.
As a result, provincial leaders had ordered cities to make preparations to get their economies back in business, while rolling out a new electronic system for monitoring the public’s health.
The South China Morning Post quoted a local Qianjiang official expressing outrage that higher-ranking Hubei officials shut down the plan to lift lockdown restrictions.
“Everyone is at the emotional tipping point as the lockdown has lasted for more than a month. Many people have lost income because they’ve been unable to go to work. They asked us officials to give them jobs, but how can we get jobs for them in the current situation?” the official said.
The Wall Street Journal noted that most factories in Hubei remained closed even as Xinhua asserted that the province had largely overcome the consequences of the outbreak. The newspaper noted that Hubei is a major car manufacturing hub and companies like Honda have lost significant profits as a result of the virus. Car companies, unlike medical supply or food companies, have been told they have no chance to reopen before March 20.
China’s failure to reboot Hubei on Wednesday was the second occasion of its kind. Beijing had attempted to return normalcy to factories nationwide in late February, claiming the outbreak would end soon. Shortly after that announcement, a study revealed that China had maintained production for international companies like Nike and Apple by shipping Muslim Uyghurs trapped in concentration camps to the various closed factories in the center of the country to work jobs that Beijing preferred to keep from the Han Chinese majority to keep them safe from the Wuhan virus. Experts have also uncovered evidence that Chinese doctors are experimenting with carving up Uyghurs while alive, without anesthesia, to use their lungs to treat coronavirus in Han Chinese patients.
Like Qianjiang, many areas nationwide woke up in lockdown on Thursday. Residents of Wuhan have anonymously complained to anti-communist outlets like the Epoch Times that they are alarmed about potentially running out of food and objecting to an unnecessary internet blockage, meant to keep locals silent about Chinese mismanagement.
“Basically, my savings are almost used up. I have to find someone to borrow money from when it’s gone. The food is so expensive. I can’t even go out to beg in the street. No one is on the street!” a trapped Wuhan resident identified only as “Mr. Pan” told the Epoch Times. “No one cares about us. I haven’t seen one grain of rice from relief aid, let alone anything else. What donations? What disaster relief? Nothing! I have two children and we have not received even a grain of rice!”
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