China Defends Restraining Babies in Coronavirus Wards as ‘Misunderstanding’

China’s state-run Global Times on Friday defended Hong Kong’s practice of forcibly restraining babies to hospital beds while in coronavirus isolation wards as an anti-epidemic policy in need of “more understanding.”

“[T]he quarantine policy in Hong Kong regarding the isolation of children is flexible and has already taken humane considerations into account,” Jin Dongyan, a professor at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, told the Global Times on March 19.

Responding to reports this week that babies are restrained to their beds and children as old as five years are forced to wear diapers while in mandatory coronavirus quarantine at Hong Kong public hospitals, Jin said, “It is more likely there was some misunderstanding, and the media should not sensationalize it. More understanding is needed given the epidemic at large.”

“[A]nti-epidemic measures that threaten individual freedoms should be given more understanding,” the newspaper added, citing the opinion of unnamed “Chinese observers.”

Hong Kong government policy currently requires all people who test positive for the Chinese coronavirus to admit themselves to a public hospital for observation and treatment if necessary. The patient’s close contacts must also enter government-run quarantine facilities for up to 14 days, according to a CNN report published March 17.

Parents who test positive for the virus must check themselves into a hospital and send their children to a quarantine facility alone. If children test positive for coronavirus but their parents do not, then their parents may accompany them to the hospital, but risk infection by doing so.

A Hong Kong parent identified as Ariel by CNN told the news site Wednesday that she was recently forced to admit her two young sons to a Hong Kong government hospital after they tested positive for coronavirus despite being classified as “asymptomatic” cases.

“Ariel joined her boys about a day after their admission after spending hours on the phone trying to navigate the bureaucracy of a major health care system and allay the fears of her crying son,” CNN reported. “The brothers — age 5 and 1 and both asymptomatic — were wearing vests that were tied to their beds to restrain them. They were covered in dirt and both wearing diapers, even the five-year-old.”

Ariel said a nurse at the hospital told her that the restraints and diapers “were standard practice because hospitals do not have the labor pool to care for every child with Covid-19 [coronavirus] and want to limit the risk to staff.”