China: Hospitals Set Up Homework Stations as Child Pneumonia Cases Surge

Hospitals in China are expanding study areas so that children diagnosed with respiratory diseases can keep up with schoolwork, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday, in response to a growing wave of pneumonia in children believed to be exacerbated by years of coronavirus lockdowns.

The Chinese Communist Party admitted in mid-November that health authorities had begun seeing a rise in children diagnosed with influenza, adenovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and mycoplasma pneumoniae, among other respiratory diseases after videos from Beijing and other major cities began showing large crowds swarming hospitals.

Beijing has repeatedly insisted, including in reports to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), that the rising cases of pneumonia are caused by these pathogens and doctors have not identified any cases of unexplained pneumonia or evidence of a novel pathogen.

News of hospitals teeming with patients suffering from respiratory illness in China recalls the early days of the Wuhan coronavirus in the eponymous central Chinese city in early 2020, during which China admitted to the discovery of a “novel” virus but initially claimed it was not transmissible.

The W.H.O. similarly assured the world in late January 2020 that “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of Wuhan coronavirus existed, despite the government of Taiwan warning the W.H.O. of the spread of a contagious disease in December 2019.

Unlike the Wuhan coronavirus, which caused the most cases of severe illness in the elderly, the current wave of disease is causing high numbers of hospitalizations among children. The Beijing Children’s Hospital has seen large crowds form outside and doctors have struggled to make room for all their patients. According to the Qatari outlet Al Jazeera, doctors speaking to its reporters say that the surge overwhelming hospitals began in October and has resulted in “high levels of absenteeism” in schools, as the schools recommend children take time to recover fully and avoid infecting their classmates.

In an apparent response to parents worrying that their children’s education will suffer if they are hospitalized, hospitals have set up “homework zones” where children on IV drips can sit and study.

“I did not intend to let my kid do homework here. But seeing that the studying atmosphere is so good in the hospital, I pushed my kid to do his homework too,” The Hong Kong-based Morning Post quoted one anonymous parent as saying, reportedly in a broadcast by CCTV, a Chinese state television network.

Another father reportedly lamented that he did not feel he had a choice not to force his child to do homework due to the grueling communist education schedule.

“My kid had to do his homework this way because if he did not finish it, he would have to do a lot more when he returns to school after he recovers,” he reportedly said. “This is a societal issue. We ordinary families can not change the unwritten rule that whatever the circumstances, you need to complete your homework.”

Reporting on the phenomenon, the Indian newspaper Hindustan Times named at least three provinces – Jiangsu, Anhui, and Hubei, where Wuhan is the regional capital – setting up study stations for child patients.

The use of “homework zones” to force hospitalized children to study prompted widespread fury on the free internet, where Chinese dissidents and anonymous users lamented the “inhumane” practice. In an apparent response to the outrage, local education authorities in Beijing issued a warning to schools this week to not overburden ill children with unnecessary homework.

“Schools should not issue any mandatory requirements for student homework during illness, and should treat student health as priority,” the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (BMEC) reportedly ordered, according to the English-language Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times. The BMEC also demanded the return of “online” education to allow children to skip school and avoid infecting classmates, as well as the return of sanitary masks, social distancing, and frequent hand-washing.

The return of coronavirus-era distancing and masking is notable as the Chinese government has blamed its own “zero-covid” policy of city-wide lockdowns, quarantine camp imprisonment, and other human rights atrocities for the current eruption of respiratory disease. In a column on November 23, the Global Times cited its regime-approved “experts” to declare that the reason for the alarming images of crowded hospitals flooded with sick children and desperate parents is an “immunity gap” created by lockdowns and quarantine camps.

The Communist Party forced entire cities – including its largest, Shanghai – into mass house arrest, often for months and abruptly, so residents could not stockpile food or necessary medicine. In the process, children trapped in their homes lost valuable exposure to common pathogens, according to the Global Times, which made their immune systems weaker.

A significant number of the children affected by the wave of illness currently hitting China were born during the pandemic and thus had little to no normal interaction with other humans.

China ended its “zero-Covid” policy after it lost control of the country in November 2022. Thousands of Chinese took to the streets in nearly every major city protesting the government, demanding freedom of movement and an end to the lockdown policies. In early December, Chinese officials announced, giving no credit to the protests, that they had independently decided to “optimize” the policy and put an end to large-scale lockdowns.

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