NYMag: Chinese Gov’t Rounds Up More Citizens Who Have Coronavirus

The New York Times reports that, according to China’s state-run broadcaster, the country is planning a further “mass roundup” of anyone who has exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus that continues to wreak havoc in the country. Previously, such operations were limited to Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak. The paper describes how that worked:

Confirmed patients with mild symptoms were put in large quarantine spaces. Suspected cases went to converted hotels and schools to be isolated. Close contacts of confirmed cases and patients with a fever who could have been infected were also put in separate facilities.

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But the extreme policy has been carried out in chaotic fashion, often leaving sick people in poorly supplied and short-staffed makeshift medical facilities — which has contributed to the sense of civic and political crisis in China. On Thursday, the central government ousted two top officials in Hubei Province, the outbreak’s epicenter, amid loud public criticism that authorities had provided an ineffectual initial response to the crisis and suppressed critical information as it began.

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