WHO official: Coronavirus is not a pandemic, but a ‘mask alone is not enough’
Speaking to top officials tasked with fighting the Wuhan coronavirus Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the «outcome of the epidemic prevention and control directly affects people’s lives and health, the overall economic and social stability and the country’s opening-up.»
While much of Xi’s speech was dedicated to promoting a centralized, coordinated approach to tackling the deadly epidemic, he also hinted at some problems which are believed to have led to the virus’s spread across China and the world.
Xi called for «resolute opposition against bureaucratism and the practice of formalities for formalities’ sake in the prevention work.» His comments may be a reference to statements made by some Wuhan officials that they did not report the virus earlier as they needed to request permission from the central government in order to do so.
«The outbreak is a major test of China’s system and capacity for governance, and we must sum up the experience and draw a lesson from it,» the meeting concluded, according to state media.
«The meeting stressed improving the country’s emergency management system and capacity of handling urgent, difficult, dangerous and important tasks.
An overhaul of environmental sanitation conditions should be conducted, the meeting said, calling for efforts to strengthen the areas of weakness in public health.
Resolute efforts should be made to crack down on illegal wildlife markets and trade to address major public health risks at the root,» state media reported.
What this actually means: While all the problems identified certainly exist, the ability of the Communist Party under Xi to deal with them is less clear. Bureaucratism has long been a problem in China, with officials wary of doing anything outside their remit or taking risks, even in a time of crisis when alacrity in decision making is needed.
One of Xi’s signature policies, a far-reaching corruption campaign, may have actually made this problem worse. By making officials’ positions far more precarious and centralizing more and more power under himself and the central government, it is even more unlikely that provincial politicians will take action without the approval of Beijing.
Poor sanitation, particularly in rural areas and the trade in wild animals were recognized as problems after the 2003 SARS outbreak. A «Patriotic Hygiene Campaign» was launched, and officials vowed to enforce tighter regulations on the trade in civet cats — which were blamed for spreading SARS — and other wild meat.
Neither of these campaigns had far reaching effects. Hygiene remains an issue in many areas — a «toilet revolution» was launched last year — and civet cats were found to be on sale at Wuhan markets.
