Fwd: Why the Wuhan government should be held accountable for mishandling virus outbreak
Simon H WANG
https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3047782/china-virus-why-wuhan-government-blame-worsening-health-crisis
From: Simon H WANG <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>
Date: Sat, Jan 25, 2020 at 8:04 AM
Subject: Why the Wuhan government should be held accountable for mishandling virus outbreak
To: Letters to the Editor <let...@scmp.com>
As a native of Wuhan living in Hong Kong, I am infuriated with how the Wuhan government mishandled the coronavirus crisis. Not only did the government fail to curb the illegal wild life trade in the so-called seafood market where the first patients were infected; it also deliberately withheld key information about the spread of virus and silenced those who told the truth.
Scientists now believe that the Wuhan virus is likely from touching or eating infected animals such as bats or snakes, similar to SARS virus that spread through bats and civets. While the trade of wild animals has become more heavily regulated in the Mainland since SARS epidemic in 2003, the Wuhan government allowed the sale of about 50 types of wild animals in the wet market.
The Wuhan government also lied to the public about the spread of the virus. Since the outbreak in December, the government officials had insisted that the disease was under control and denied the possibilities of human-to-human transmission even after 15 medical staff had been infected by a patient. The Wuhan Police even “punished” 8 people for spreading “rumours” about the virus when it was the Wuhan government officials who had misled the public.
Because of the misinformation of the Wuhan government, the city had missed the golden opportunities to check the spread of the virus and was forced to shut down all the transport links on Jan 23. By then infected cases had already been found all over China including Hong Kong and Macau.
Even after the lockdown, the Wuhan government officials were still not completely honest about the epidemic. Despite their claims that medical supplies were sufficient, a number of hospitals in Wuhan had called for urgent delivery of more supplies through the Internet. Notwithstanding the promise of the government to take care of the locked down Wuhan residents, long waiting lines were found in most major hospitals in the city, making it impossible to effectively identify and quarantine infected patients.
The State Council of the Chinese Central government has started collecting information and views online from the public to investigate possible underreporting of the infected cases. It is hoped that the Wuhan government officials will be held accountable for their ineffective governance and the crisis could be resolved soon with more resources provided by the public and the central government.
Simon Wang, Kowloon Tong
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