Chinese experts explain toughness towards human welfare officials
China has made great strides in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and is facing a new coronavirus outbreak, blamed not only on the highly infectious Delta variant, but also by negligent officials who were to blame for gaps in the defense against the virus. Those responsible for new cases of the disease will be punished and many of them have already suffered.
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The tourist town of Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province in central China, which has become one of the last “hot spots” for COVID-19 infection, has been punished for 20 officials and civil servants for ineffective response to the outbreak.
According to the Chinese publication Global Times, the list of punished officials includes district officials, hospital management and staff associated with the local tourist agency. The fact is that the show with a large audience for tourists caused a massive spread of the virus in at least eight provinces and regions of China.
About six Yongding officials who had 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection on Tuesday were punished. Among them is the head of the district health department, Xu Xionghui, who has been removed from office, informed China Central Television (CCTV).
According to an official statement, Xu demonstrated an inability to oversee the implementation of epidemic prevention and control in the district and did not have effective and timely management of the isolation of infected patients.
Deng Huabin, director of the emergency department of the People's Hospital in Zhangjiajie, who was in charge of general nucleic acid testing at the hospital, was also removed from his position due to mismanagement, which led to chaotic congestion at the testing site and posed a serious risk of cross-contamination at the hospital.
Authorities in Zhangjiajie ordered all residents and tourists not to leave the city and to cooperate with measures to control the epidemic during the last outbreak. The Global Times learned from locals that they have been undergoing city-wide nucleic acid testing since July 29, and some key groups have been tested three times. The viral sequences of the Zhangjiajie cases were found to correspond to the sequences of the virus found in Nanjing in Jiangsu Province in eastern China, a variant of Delta.
According to the Global Times, Zhangjiajie is not the only Chinese city where officials were punished during the last COVID-19 outbreak. The director of the health commission in Zhengzhou, Henan Province and the party secretary at Zhengzhou Sixth People's Hospital were fired last Saturday after the city reported one positive asymptomatic case of coronavirus and several suspected infectious cases on Friday.
In general, after the outbreak of COVID-19, many Chinese officials were punished and held accountable for their inefficient work. “It shows how China values people's lives,” comments the Global Times. “An effective Chinese accountability system is people-centered, and it is the job of all Chinese government officials to get people to the center of attention.”
“Since the last outbreak, Zhangjiajie's overall prevention and control measures have been relatively positive.” However, 18 officials were punished. The epidemic is a test of governance and the system of accountability is a test of whether government action really serves the people, “Zhi Zhenfeng, a legal expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times.
The Chinese press did not miss the opportunity to compare the situation in China and the USA with regard to coronavirus. “China is the country with the toughest measures to hold officials accountable if they do poorly in preventing and controlling COVID-19,” the Global Times writes. – The United States, as the most powerful country, has been hit hardest by the epidemic. However, not a single American official was prosecuted. “
“An effective Chinese accountability system shows the superiority of the Chinese system and stands the test of practice. Bloomberg even ranked the United States first in the COVID-19 resistance rating, but the reality is clear. It is also clear which country really values people's lives and basic interests, “says Zhi Zhenfeng.
It is worth noting that not only officials and officials of the health system, but also ordinary citizens are responsible for actions that are wrong under the law against the background of the pandemic in China.
In early August, police in Hozhou (Shanxi Province in northern China) caught a man who had fled the COVID-19 Central Quarantine Zone in a neighboring province two days earlier. Police soon found out that he was a fugitive convict who had recently returned from the Philippines to China. According to a statement from the Ministry of Health, Hozhou fled a quarantine man with the surname Zhao, who was previously in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province in central China. Zhao then traveled to Hoozhou and traveled to a hotel with a local resident named Cheng, who used his own ID to rent a room for Zhao. he visited Zhao, including a hotel, an internet cafe and a noodle shop, and all his close contacts were quarantined. Local police said they would investigate Cheng's case and punish him in accordance with the law.
The behavior of both perpetrators angered many Chinese netizens, who criticized the couple for exposing others to the risk of infection.
“No matter how many years he was previously convicted, I suggest leaving him in prison for a longer period of time,” one Weibo user wrote. “The Zhengzhou Quarantine Site should also be charged with negligence,” another user wrote.