Chinese Media Admits Coronavirus Still Raging: ‘Prevention Will Become a Protracted War’

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda claims the country suffered a relative handful of infections during the coronavirus pandemic compared to other countries around the world and has all but eradicated the virus across most of China, but state media this week tacitly admitted the disease is still raging and told readers to prepare for preventive measures remaining necessary far into the future.

The Global Times on Tuesday wrote an editorial quoting the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) warning that “the worst is yet ahead of us.” The primary thrust of the editorial was to chastise American and European officials who want to lift coronavirus lockdowns as soon as possible, since keeping those lockdowns in place on adversaries while China ramps up its own industrial production appears to be a major CCP objective.

In the course of playing the victim and rejecting criticism of how the CCP handled the coronavirus, the Global Times admitted it still has a much bigger problem than the numbers it feeds to W.H.O. would suggest:

The prospect of an outbreak remains uncertain. The restless sentiment in the West has been exploited and manipulated by some politicians. This is particularly the case in the US, with President Donald Trump publicly supporting mass protests against social distancing. Pre-mature resumption of work may trigger the coronavirus situation in the West to rebound and drag down global achievements in fighting the virus and plunge countries like China and South Korea into more risks.

Pandemic prevention will become a protracted war. The Chinese people need to be prepared for a whole-year or even longer struggle with the virus. We must be clear that patience and endurance are key during the process and we need to enhance our abilities.

The first is to systemize the disease prevention and control mechanism. It should be improved continuously so that it can dilute the impact of imported cases and a domestic rebound. It should be enhanced so that it can detect and trace the infection chain of newly added cases and reduce the impact on people’s lives. In other words, the mechanism would maximize its effect in disease control and prevention and minimize social pains.

The Global Times reluctantly admitted a few mistakes were made in Wuhan and found a new scapegoat to take the blame: yuppies.

China has done a good job fighting the virus. But some in the US and Western countries have thrown mud at China’s efforts. How to respond to the smears is a test for China. There were some deficiencies in China’s initial response to the epidemic and Chinese public sentiment is fragile. This shows that the urban middle class that have been quickly rising in recent years still have some confusion to sort out. The national management system needs to keep pace with the times and be able to unite society.

China must have the ability to deal with big international uncertainties. Strategists widely believe that the COVID-19 pandemic will very likely undermine the foundations of global governance and stability or even lead to geopolitical turbulence. China should make sober judgments, respond calmly to and make early preparations for changes. 

China has respected science and acted based on facts over the past few months. The virus has so far impacted Western society the most, but the US hasn’t truly reflected on it. US politicians have acted in a bigoted and opportunistic manner. 

On Wednesday, another Global Times piece admitted that China’s “good job of fighting the coronavirus” has not been as good as advertised, since hospitals are aggressively screening to keep infected people out, even though the CCP previously claimed no one except a few foreign visitors (especially Africans) is infected any more:

Only patients who take normal CT scans, nucleic acid tests and antibody tests for COVID-19 can be admitted to hospitals, the Harbin Health Commission required, after two local hospitals became the source of clustered infections and the infection chain continued to expand as of press time.

The local health commission in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province said after patients arrive at hospital, they have to undergo a series of pre-diagnosis checks and have their body temperature taken. The pre-diagnosis and fever clinics should screen patients who want to be admitted to hospitals, including giving them CT scans, blood routine examination, nucleic acid and antibody tests. 

Only one escort is allowed to enter an inpatient ward, which will be strictly regulated 24 hours a day, the local health commission said. 

Casual conversations between COVID-19 patients’ escorts near nurse stations are one of the reasons behind the clustered infections in Harbin Second Hospital, the local health authority revealed, as increasing numbers of people were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 in the infection chain. 

According to the Global Times, one 87-year-old stroke patient set off a chain reaction on April 2 that required over 4,000 coronavirus screenings and put 216 doctors and nurses into quarantine.