(Translator’s preface: Lao Tian offers his views on the
effectiveness of the Chinese government’s response to the pandemic and the
importance of relying on the people.)
Very early on, I saw a self-proclaimed epidemiological
investigator say that the problem caused by the old woman in Yangzhou was serious[1],
and that its severity would be amplified by the poor epidemic prevention
capacity in Yangzhou (including the small number of contract tracers), and that
the epidemic in Yangzhou would be much worse than in Nanjing.
So far, large numbers of infected people have been found in
Yangzhou on a daily basis, and it is likely that there is some undiscovered
hidden chain of transmission that continues to be at work. Yangzhou's local
epidemic prevention capacity is limited and Jiangsu Province's intervention in
the Yangzhou outbreak seems to have come a little late.
At present, only China has taken a preventive approach and
organised comprehensive prevention and control. Nucleic acid testing of the
entire population is only an auxiliary technical tool - because it is not
precise enough to detect only 20% or 30% of cases, the key tool is to rely on
the epidemiological investigation personnel. The epidemiological investigation
relies on personnel to uncover the chain of transmission and then isolate and
block the path of transmission until the last hidden chain of transmission has
been discovered.
The extreme measure of sealing off the city is in fact an
indiscriminate way of blocking the transmission pathway in anticipation of the
difficulty of revealing the entire hidden chain of transmission in a short
period of time - the option of disconnecting everyone, without exception, from
human contact "outside the home". The cost and social impact of such
an option would be enormous, but its effectiveness would be greatly reduced if
it did not seal off the community.
A friend in Yangzhou disclosed: "There are no infected
people in my parents' neighbourhood. Luckily, one person from each family can
go out once a day. However, the city bus has stopped and it is not convenient
to go out for shopping. There are many retired people in my parents'
neighbourhood, and although they have organised a buying group of their own,
there are many old people and few who can work, so the shopping still doesn't
go well. My parents still won't let me complain, they always think it's not
easy for the government and it's okay to get through it on your own."
For a long time, the inability to form a second supply chain
for household goods [Note: this article refers to channels other than
conventional logistics, i.e.: no need for individuals to go out and shop in
brick and mortar shops] was a key shortcoming and a reflection of the
government's lack of ability to seal and control. During the closure of Wuhan,
it was also impossible to seal off the district for a long time, and it took a
long time to set up a second supply chain.
At that time, Wuhan had 40,000 party members and cadres
descending into the community, and many volunteers joined the community work. There
are about 7,000 districts and 3,000 communities in Wuhan, and the deployment of
personnel, on average about 6-7 people to each district, was really quite a
lot. However, the community was unable to fully integrate and use these forces;
if the deployed personnel were still working under the nose of their "old
bosses", the formation of a second supply chain should take less than a
week. Wuhan finally sealed the community and organised a channel for the
distribution of household goods, but it took almost four weeks to gradually put
in place at the end of February. Needless to say, there are still many
loopholes and dead ends, and the operation is far from smooth.
In my hometown, Qichun, two weeks before the closure of the
community in Wuhan, this measure had been completed-to the point where the
supermarket only accepted grid staff[2]
and not individual consumers, thus contrasting with the sparseness of
government capacity after the closure of Wuhan.
After the Wuhan epidemic, there have been some new
developments in commercial channels, such as Meituan and Taobao, which have set
up networks to sell vegetables that are close enough to be delivered downstairs
in the city, and can partially replace the old commercial channels and act as a
substitute during the closure of the district. It is also possible to do a
little better during special times of epidemic prevention, if you work with the
government or take over a role. Some elderly people who do not know how to use
smartphones or shop online will need to be matched up with real people, and
this part of the service will need to be supplemented by community or other
grid workers.
During the closure of Wuhan, the deployed personnel were
poorly connected to the community, and as the community could not locate them,
there was no way to assign work to them, while the personnel themselves often
just did their work perfunctorily, and for psychological fear or other reasons,
they were mostly reluctant to seriously engage in community work. Of course, it
is not enough to rely entirely on the strength of the community to supply
materials, and this requires the operation of a new logistics system; but to
set up a new network, it is definitely necessary to start from the most
grass-roots level of the community, to connect with each household of the general
population.
The low capacity of the government during the Wuhan closure
and the lack of focus at the grassroots level (two house-to-house inspections
were carried out for propaganda purposes, which were unnecessary and did not
result in any positive closure effect) caused problems that greatly discounted
the effectiveness of the closure. Even these flaws and problems were not
brought up for public discussion and, as a result, the same problems arose in
the middle of the subsequent closures in Shijiazhuang and Yanbian - citizens
were not allowed to go out, but the supply chain for subsistence goods was slow
to be established. This time in Yangzhou, too, the performance was similar.
This shows that the government is not only incapable of solving problems in a
timely manner, but also lacks the will and ability to identify real problems
and organise public discussions in order to prepare the conditions for
subsequent improvements.
The feeling at the time was that there were too many
sprayers[3]
on the Internet and very few people willing to pay attention to the actual
problems. The people who made up the government, and the way its decisions were
made by action and inaction, were in a similar position to the frenzy of public
opinion on the Internet - not many people were concerned about the actual
problems and their solutions.
The second supply chain of materials is the key to the
effectiveness of the sealing of the city, otherwise it would have to rely on
old commercial channels and outbound purchases, which discounts its effectiveness.
The overwhelming majority of the population, like friends
and relatives, supported the closure of the city, which was a key way in which
"people power" supported the prevention of the epidemic, and although
there were significant shortcomings in government capacity, comprehensive
control measures could still be applied.
It seems that the role of people power support comes first
in terms of the government taking proactive measures to prevent the epidemic,
the government doing the right thing comes second, and the role of hospitals
and the technical power of the capitalist approach to intervention takes a back
seat. The extraordinary success of China's epidemic preparedness is largely the
result of people power support, and of course the government's efforts in the
right direction (albeit not very good - concentrating on the sluggishness of
the supply chain), with the power of capital and technology only taking a back
seat.
As it stands, it is unlikely that the New Coronavirus
evolved naturally and is likely to have come from a US (possibly individual,
corporate or governmental action) biological warfare agent, and if that is the
case, it is clear that the US and the West are out of the picture this time,
lacking the critical support of the people's power, and they have no way to end
it.
Before the new pandemic, there was an assessment of the
capacity of countries to prevent and control infectious diseases, and the
United States scored highest and was ranked first. However, it is the support
of people's power, not capital (technical) power or government capacity, that
plays a major role in the epidemic prevention process, and how this people's
power should be measured and evaluated is clearly something that experts from
all walks of life in a capitalist, alienated society are not familiar with.
In essence, the government's efforts need to be directed
towards strengthening the power of the people to make a difference - to make
people's lives worry-free, thereby maximising the interpersonal chain of
communication and blocking the path of transmission of the virus - in order to
obtain a better proactive response to the epidemic.
August 12, 2021
[1] A
64-year old woman was arrested early in August after she had travelled from
Nanjing to Yangzhou, concealing her itinerary and causing a flare-up of
Covid-19 cases. Nanjing already was in the throes of a flare-up, and residents
travelling to other cities were required to report their itineraries to the
relevant Public Security Bureaus.
[2] Grid
workers are responsible for a grid or section of a city, including street
shops, residential, rental housing, factories, high-rise buildings and so on.
Their task is to patrol these places every day for security risks and welfare
issues, but they have no law enforcement powers. They can control their own
working hours so long as they complete the quota of weekly reports. They have an identifying vest but do not have
special professional protective measures, and as they are always door-knocking
there is a risk of infection. Many complain of overwork and shortages of staff.
[3] A
sprayer is someone who uses social media to make accusations without logic or
facts. A person who likes to make wild accusations against others without being
reasonable. A person is not a sprayer if they criticise in a reasonable way
(presenting facts and reasoning), even where their knowledge is limited.
Spraying is not as intense and obsessed as trolling, but it can develop into
trolling.
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