On a cold morning in Beijing, on a boring road in the Thong Hue River, a lonely person writes giant letters on the snow.The image in the snow: “Goodbye Ly Van Luong!” – the exclamation mark at the end is the author using his whole body to rest on the snow to paint. The message reminds a deceased doctor: “Goodbye Ly Van Luong!”.
The author uses the whole body to draw an exclamation point in the sentence.
Five weeks earlier, Dr. Li Wenliang (1986-2020) was fined by the police for seeking to warn colleagues about the dangers of a new, strange virus at his hospital, in Wuhan.
Then he himself got a virus and died. Images of snow memorial lines have spread rapidly on the Chinese Internet, capturing moments of shock and rage in the country.
The death of the Chinese doctor who sought to warn of an outbreak of corona virus without success, caused public outrage and grief across China.
Accompanying grief and anger is the loss of trust in the government, the seed of dissent. In a rare solidarity, nearly every element of Chinese society harmonizes with one thing: “Freedom of speech – People ask why there is no freedom of speech, why no right to question, why is there no right to know things well, why every media channel is the mouthpiece of the government !!! ”
No such collective reaction has ever been witnessed, at least since 1989 when the Tiananmen massacre occurred.
Citing the Chinese state-run media, Reuters said on 13 Feb that Party Secretary of Hubei Jiang Chaoliang was dismissed and replaced by Mr. Ying Yong, mayor of Shanghai.
Xinhua news agency only announced the decision to change personnel without giving more details. But clearly this is a huge personnel change in the context of the recent days, the Chinese central government has criticized and pointed out many shortcomings in the response of the Wuhan government. Particularly and Hubei province in general. Before Mr. Jiang was dismissed, two top-ranking Hubei health officials were also sacked on Feb 10 for being blamed for handling the disease.
Feb 13 was also a special day because the highest number of deaths and infected mutations ever.
The number of confirmed cases increased by nearly 15,000 and the number of deaths increased by 242 people.
The total number of cases was more than 60,000 with nearly 1,400 deaths, and 5,700 completely cured, but there were still 8,200 patients in critical condition.
The whole world rushed to find an answer on why the number of illnesses increased so suddenly:
Some explanations from Beijing said: This number is mainly due to the new way of diagnosis, based on symptoms and diagnosis by the Doctor in Wuhan, not using the test (because the test is not enough for everyone. On the other hand, China is classifying cases, and cases with both clinical symptoms and a positive Covid-19 virus test are considered cases.
The animal, which could be infected after the virus originated from a bat, is believed to have been kept at a market in Wuhan, where the animal trade is illegal.
Apart from this hypothesis, scientists are still trying to locate and cannot say anything with certainty.
But one thing is certain: After more than a month of discovery, Covid-19 has shaken the roots of Chinese society and politics.
It has revealed the limits of a political system where social control is of the highest value. It breaks the censorship barrier with a storm of grief and resentment.
The outcome depends on questions that no one knows: whether the government can control the disease, and how long will it take?
Public affection can tilt, from fear to subjective.
However, the present Chinese experience suggests two things. First, it reveals a scary prospect when the health system faces widespread and fast spreading infections.
Secondly, it shows the importance of an attitude that attaches great importance to controlling the spread of new viruses.
There is ample evidence that officials initially ignored the warning signal.
By the end of December, medical staff in Wuhan began to notice strange symptoms, associated with illegal wildlife trade.
On December 30, Doctor Li Wenliang posted concerns in a private chat group, advising colleagues to be careful. A few days later, the police invited him to come and start to sign confessions. State television also reported that eight people in Wuhan were under investigation for “spreading rumors.”
In fact, authorities knew about the spread. Because one day after Dr. Li published the news, China itself sent a notice to the World Health Organization (WHO). A day later, the source suspicous seafood market was closed.
But the authorities did little to protect the people. At the annual political meeting in Wuhan, leadership did not talk about viruses. The National Health Commission continues to say the number of infections is limited, and there is no evidence that the disease can be transmitted from person to person.
On January 18, Wuhan organized a huge gala dinner with 40,000 families.
Two days later, China confirmed that a human-to-human spread had occurred.
The comparison of the failure to announce bad news to superiors, and the incentive to place short-term interests on stability before public safety, seems clear.
The death of Dr. Li Wenliang has outraged the public, to the point that Chinese censors seem unsure about what to delete and what to allow.
Knowing the people’s sentiments, the Party began to praise Dr. Li Wenliang, calling him a national hero.
An indication that leadership is aware of the current risk is the role of President Xi Jinping.
This week, for the first time since the crisis, Xi went out to meet health workers, visit a hospital and a virus control center in Beijing.
In contrast, Prime Minister Li Keqiang was sent to Wuhan, where he was promoted to be the leader of the disease response leader.
Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine before the catastrophic explosion whose damage no one could have estimated with the outcome of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Historically, wars, famines, and sickness have once caused the dynasties to collapse. This has left rulers with a clear historical memory of the dangers of a sudden crisis.
They will also understand what Chernobyl did with the legitimacy of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union that day.
One observer said Xi was “clearly worried that the crisis could ruin him, so he made his subordinate the public face to represent the Party’s reaction.”
There were also signs that the censorship apparatus was increasing its capacity, and Xi ordered officials to “tighten control over network communications.”
But with the need to restart the economy, which has been frozen for the past week, China has only slowly returned to work, when the Chinese now only fear for life and health.
There are some signs that strict isolation measures can work. Outside of Hubei Province, the number of new infections is decreasing every day.
But the extent of the disaster that could threaten this world has revealed something important.
Thousands have lost loved ones, millions are in quarantine, and businesses have suffered huge financial losses.
China and Vietnam are similar institutions under communism, the communication of people in both countries is suffocated. The law is only used to punish people.
Now, when the dangerous Corona virus outbreak from Wuhan and spread globally has caused the death of thousands of people, it is exacerbated by the consequences of dictatorial institutions, hushing information, carrying to the people of painful and unjust death.
Every human being, every life is very precious, when all people speak up for their right to life and safety for themselves and their families, their legal rights are protected and the government must be responsible for solving them to meet the people’s reasonable aspirations.
Trung Nam from Da Nang – Thoibao.de (Translated)
