Wuhan Residents Denounce China for Hiding Continued Coronavirus Spread

Residents of Wuhan, China – where the coronavirus pandemic originated – told various media outlets throughout the week that Communist Party-run hospitals were turning away people with coronavirus symptoms and failing to document new cases, allowing Beijing to claim the outbreak in Wuhan was largely over.

Chinese state media celebrated the alleged return to normalcy in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China, on Wednesday, announcing that the Communist Party was allowing public transport buses back on the street and slowly letting businesses re-open (all economic activity in China is controlled by the Communist Party).

“Wuhan, the once hardest-hit city in central China’s Hubei Province during the COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] outbreak, resumed a total of 117 bus routes starting Wednesday, around 30 percent of the city’s total bus transport capacity, the municipal transport bureau said,” the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

China had spent most of the past week celebrating not documenting any coronavirus cases in Wuhan until Tuesday, when it revealed that a doctor in the city tested positive for coronavirus. Wuhan officials claimed the doctor was the only documented case in the city that day and that they did not have an explanation for how he or she got infected since no other cases existed in the city.

Reports citing Wuhan locals appear to have the answer: the virus continues to spread throughout the city, but the Chinese Communist Party has simply decided not to test or treat patients with symptoms. Hong Kong broadcaster RTHK quoted several Wuhan residents, speaking anonymously out of fear of arrest or censorship, who said that they had witnessed Wuhan medical staff refusing to test individuals with clear symptoms resembling coronavirus infection.

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