Disinformation: China Claims Coronavirus Patients at Home Could Infect Others via Sewer

A Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) official justified the mass internment of asymptomatic Chinese coronavirus patients in Shanghai by claiming that, if left to isolate at home, they could infect others through the sewer system, the state outlet Global Times reported on Wednesday.

Liang Wannian is the head of the NHC’s special “expert” commission on Chinese coronavirus and reportedly made the remark this weekend. Liang cited “ventilation systems” as well as the sewer as potentially causing the risk of infectious disease spread in apartment buildings if patients are allowed to isolate at home.

China has implemented a severe lockdown in its largest city, Shanghai, keeping residents trapped in their homes at gunpoint and forcing citizens to test for coronavirus en masse. The Communist Party forces those testing positive for the disease, even if not exhibiting symptoms or exhibiting only mild ones, into oppressive isolation centers. Reports indicate that China is busing tens of thousands of people out of Shanghai into quarantine centers in neighboring communities, outraging locals there who complain that the Party is spreading the disease by moving people around.

Outside of the camps, videos and eyewitness reports are mounting of food shortages as people did not have a chance to stockpile at home before the lockdown and Communist Party officials have failed to distribute enough food and other critical supplies like medicine in a timely manner. Multiple videos surfacing on Chinese social media outlets show riots and conflict between Party agents in hazmat suits and crowds of desperate locals.

Adding to the panic are videos of Chinese government officials rounding up and killing, often beating to death, the pets of those sent to the camps.

Growing evidence of unrest in Shanghai and fears that the lockdowns will soon arrive elsewhere in China sent state media arms into overdrive this week trying to justify the measures. The Global Times, a Communist Party propaganda newspaper, insisted on Wednesday that not trapping people in government-run camps was “risky … as they might cause further transmission and miss the optimal treatment period.”

The newspaper cited various government “experts” to make the case. It did not explain what “treatment” asymptomatic patients would need that they would not receive while in isolation at home.

The Times admitted that Chinese “health experts” had advised “exploring the feasibility of home quarantine as a possible way to deal with the outbreak” and that demands for alternatives to the government camps had caused “heated” discussions on Chinese government-run online fora.

Citing an official with China’s Center for Disease Control, the newspaper insisted that “it is important to transfer the infected persons who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms to centralized isolation sites.”

The Times then cited Liang’s claim that, “if people are isolated at home, facilities and equipment like sewers and ventilation systems always present a risk of transmission.”

Scientists have confirmed the presence of Chinese coronavirus in sewage internationally. In America, local government public health officials have tracked the presence of the virus in wastewater in many states and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in February that it would organize a nationwide effort to track coronavirus levels in sewage and make that information publicly available.

Tracking coronavirus levels in sewage could allow scientists to find the signs of a major outbreak earlier than relying on testing, particularly given that many people experience mild symptoms or none at all and thus are unlikely to test.

Scientists have debated whether the particles of coronavirus DNA found in sewage belong to samples of live virus or are merely dead viral cells that can still result in a positive test. The American CDC decisively notes on its website: “There is no information to date that anyone has become sick with COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] because of direct exposure to treated or untreated wastewater.”

“Wastewater treatment plants use chemical and other disinfection processes to remove and degrade many viruses and bacteria. The virus that causes COVID-19 is inactivated by the disinfection methods used in wastewater treatment,” the CDC observes.

In addition to making unverified claims that strict lockdowns and hauling asymptomatic people to camps are the only responsible ways to handle a Chinese coronavirus outbreak, government media have also begun condemning other countries around the world for attempting to keep their economies buoyant and not destroying the lives of their citizens.

Wu Zunyou, a top Chinese CDC official, dismissed returning to normal life as a “helpless choice that other countries have to follow as they cannot find an ideal strategy to control the virus” this week, the Global Times relayed. Wu insisted that total lockdowns were “the best choice.”

In other commentaries this week, the Global Times made the case that countries like the United States are largely allowing citizens to live freely to “delude the Chinese public” into thinking it is safe. The rejection of full lockdowns in America, the Communist Party newspaper claimed, “is a trick used by some in the West to delude the Chinese public and attempt to weaken China’s adherence to the zero-COVID strategy, which could easily cause havoc in Chinese society.”

The Global Times did not define the current wave of food riots, pet killing, and the disappearance of thousands into camps as “havoc.”

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