Viruses, totalitarianism and the power of the powerless

In the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic area, there is a joke: if you go back a month, can you go back to sound the alarm and save the world with the truth of the virus raging? The answer is no, you will only become the ninth "rumor maker" to be punished.

This dark humorous joke reveals three messages: 1. People know that there is an alarm, but it doesn't sound. 2. People know that there are alarms, but they don't go off. 3. When the alarm mechanism fails, disaster is not accidental, but inevitable.

Belinsky said, “Curiousness has no place in tragedy.” This is perhaps the most powerful energy of tragedy: the individual is in it, watching the system disintegrate like a written script, and life is devastated, with little power to change.

This plague, which originated in Wuhan and ravaged the whole of China and even the world, is undoubtedly such a man-made disaster.

Man-made disaster, not natural disaster

From December 1, when the first patient with novel coronavirus pneumonia became ill, to January 23, when Wuhan announced the closure of the city, a full 54 days passed. Before the closure of the city, almost no one was wearing a mask on the streets of cities in China, including Wuhan. The public's vigilance was awakened when a city with a population of 10 million was suddenly blocked and realized that "something happened".

Of course it's too late. January 24th is Chinese New Year's Eve, and the "Spring Festival", which was launched on January 10th, is the largest human migration in the world. More than one billion people have migrated inside and outside China for 14 days. Wuhan officials later admitted that the number of people in Wuhan alone was 5 million people who left with the Spring Festival travel before the blockade. Most of them returned to their hometowns in various cities, towns, counties and townships in Hubei, and nearly half of them went to various provinces in China. , and even all over the world.

Before the closure of the city on January 23, under the extremely strict conditions for the diagnosis of new coronary pneumonia, only medical staff in Wuhan had confirmed 22 cases, not to mention the fever patients who were already overcrowded in the hospital.

What happened after January 23, the whole world knows.

In the city of Wuhan, life is scorched. In addition to the fatality rate of the new crown virus itself, the high-density outbreak of the epidemic has brought about a run on medical resources, and has been in a desperate situation for a long time; the militarized closure of the city to stop logistics and transportation has brought about a large number of chronic disease patients. Far beyond the official statistics and published figures.

Outside Wuhan, everyone is in danger. From cities, to regions, to countries, one after another is blocked, traffic is suspended, flights are cancelled, activities are suspended, and all the flow and logistics of the global society that operates like capillaries suddenly press the pause button, but they still can’t stop it. Rising infection numbers.

Once the virus gets out of control and becomes a plague, it will have its own logic of growth and spread. One-size-fits-all militarization measures have limited effectiveness. In the epidemic area where outbreaks are concentrated, how to maintain life and try to reduce the mortality rate in the protracted war is a test of the country's medical infrastructure project, and the government's ability to go deep into grassroots organization and governance.

Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is that, 54 days before Wuhan was closed, the early warning mechanism failed layer by layer, and the virus finally broke out out of control. And three weeks after the city was closed due to the plague, medical resources were rapidly overdrawn in the epidemic area, but supplies from all parties could not be delivered. Under the one-size-fits-all policy, the internal management was extremely chaotic, the administrative efficiency was low, and bureaucrats at all levels were busy shifting the blame. .

It’s not just the mistakes of totalitarian governments that are repeating themselves: the absence of free speech that ensures public scrutiny, and the absence of democratic government that is accountable to the people, not the leaders, allowing manageable crises to spiral out of control. Even where the Chinese model has always been considered an advantage, the national system, centralized efficiency, and national strength seem to be failing. What happened to make the virus evolve into a plague, and the plague has developed to this point?

Before the closure of the city, the early warning system failed layer by layer

Under the strict censorship mechanism, journalists in mainland China broke through the blockade, and despite the threat of the virus, dozens of media outlets and dozens of reporters kept relaying, bringing back key information on the recovery of the epidemic from the front line. These testimonies from doctors, patients, family members, and scientists, although they are all told in soft characters and disaster relief stories, can still be identified at a glance by those with a heart, those key points in time that reveal the reasons for the system failure.

The normal early warning mechanism should be that when a first-line hospital finds a case, it will notify the government health authority on the one hand, and medical research institutions on the other, and the former will make public health arrangements, deploy medical resources in advance, and deploy internal and external response and notification mechanisms. Deploy information disclosure and public prevention education to prevent the spread of the epidemic; the latter traces the source of the virus, researches medical professional response plans, and cooperates with international forces to test drugs and breakthrough vaccines to scientifically control the epidemic.

But what people see is that after the hospital reported the first report and the scientific researchers knew the first time, the health management department of the Chinese government, on the one hand, did launch an internal investigation, on the other hand, in the "newly diagnosed number", In the notification of the three key indicators of "human-to-human transmission" and "medical-care infection", the public continued to conceal and lie to the public.

On December 1, the first patient with new coronary pneumonia in Wuhan became ill. On January 7, the first doctor was diagnosed with the infection. On January 9, the first patient with new coronary pneumonia died. By January 19, the number of medical staff confirmed to be infected had reached 18. During this period, from the end of December to the beginning of January, manufacturers specializing in masks and protective clothing have long heard the news and canceled the meeting held in Hubei (December 20); the National Health Commission arrived in Wuhan early to investigate (December 31). Japan); the Chinese government notified the United States of the epidemic early (January 3); Hong Kong, which sent people to Wuhan to investigate, launched a severe-level response (January 4).

(Refer to the timeline organized by Yicai: https://m.yicai.com/news/100495596.html)

However, since December 31, Wuhan Municipal Health and Health Commission began to report "viral pneumonia" to the public. The "number of new confirmed cases" they announced has been far lower than the real number, and in January, the most critical period of epidemic prevention, coincided with Wuhan The "two sessions" of the city and Hubei Province were held. During the meeting, the number of newly diagnosed cases remained at "zero" miraculously. Until January 19, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission did not change its statement: "No obvious human-to-human transmission was found" and "there was no medical care infection."

Even on January 19, the Baibuting community in Wuhan held a "10,000-person banquet". Half a month later, the outbreak of the epidemic in this community proved that the banquet where 10,000 people sat and ate together was the scene of large-scale cross-infection.

On January 20, Zhong Nanshan, an expert during the SARS period, came forward and was interviewed on CCTV, saying that there was a phenomenon of "human-to-human transmission" of the new crown pneumonia. It was the first time that the official media released information to confirm the seriousness of the epidemic.

Two days later, Hubei launched a "second-level response to public emergencies", and three days later, Wuhan suddenly closed the city.

After the closure of the city, public health governance has failed at every level

The city with a population of 10 million suddenly closed and entered a state of martial law, and everyone realized that the outbreak had already occurred. But in the next three weeks, the situation in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and even various provinces and cities still surprised many people.

In Wuhan, not only the entry and exit was blocked, but the city's public transport services were also stopped, and all private cars were stopped. Only 6,000 taxis were arranged in the whole city to undertake emergency transportation functions. As a result, medical staff have to walk to work, or volunteers can pick them up in a centralized manner, and patients need to be picked up by bicycles in the cold wind when they go to the hospital. The hospital's supplies were quickly overdrawn. In all hospitals, it was hard to find a bed. Pictures of patients sleeping or even dying in the corridor were frequently reported. The most basic masks, protective clothing, and medical gloves were all in emergency. In the absence of supplies for many days, major hospitals in Wuhan began to directly ask the society for help on the Internet, hoping to make donations from the society. In the list, many hospitals have already "zero" masks and protective clothing. Wuhan Union Hospital even wrote directly on the Weibo title: "It's not an emergency, it's gone!"

It’s too late to ask what went wrong with the country’s material deployment—why did the government not prepare in advance when the government already knew about it in December, why didn’t they allocate funds from the provinces before deciding that Wuhan would be closed down, why didn’t they look at it after the city was closed down? Efforts to allocate resources to the government (even if it is not enough) - On the Internet, anxious civil society took action, people spontaneously formed countless volunteer groups, some people took the risk of infection in the city to transport doctors and nurses to and from get off work; some people set up material groups , donated money from manufacturers all over the country and around the world to buy a large number of masks and protective clothing, and sent them to the front lines of hospitals in Wuhan and Hubei counties and cities; some people set up a patient help group to try their best to help individuals who are severely ill but cannot be admitted to the hospital and who seek help online and family, coordinate scarce hospital resources, or provide psychological support.

However, after a week, people found that volunteer donations from all over the world were not allowed to be delivered to any hospital directly, but were piled up in the warehouses of the Wuhan Red Cross and Wuhan Charity Federation, filling up an entire stadium. they assign. The doctors couldn't get the supplies when they arrived at the door of the warehouse, and the medical staff had to repeatedly wear the protective clothing, masks, gloves, and even homemade masks that they had already worn. The number of medical staff infections rose rapidly.

The people are boiling: Time is life, why at such an urgent moment, a "black hole" seems to have appeared over Wuhan, absorbing all the supplies? Nearly a week later, the Wuhan Red Cross Society came out under pressure to apologize, saying that it was not competent enough, and the government in charge belatedly said that it would investigate and deal with it, and bring in the capabilities of enterprises to help allocate supplies...

If fighting the epidemic is like fighting, doctors and nurses are like soldiers, and medical supplies are like grain. In Wuhan, the front line of China's anti-epidemic, what people see is that as soon as the combat order was issued, the front line was already running out of food and grass, and soldiers fell ill, not even because of the exhaustion of resources, but because of the poor allocation of officials and the lack of an open society. Save yourself. At the same time, from Wuhan City, Hubei Province, scientific research institutions, the Red Cross, the Charity Federation, and even the central government, a large-scale official shirking of responsibilities began. In the chain of responsibility that made the virus outbreak a plague, the person in charge of every intermediate link came out to give interviews to the media, trying to push the responsibility up: I reported it in December, and I have no right to make my own decisions...

The doctor said I told the CDC, the CDC said I told the local government, the local government said I reported it, and the provincial government said I also reported it. From that level up, who is to blame?

Beijing did not set up an epidemic prevention team until after New Year's Eve, the first day of the new year. When announcing the establishment of the team, the leader of the team, who was responsible, was suspended for a day before it was announced that Li Keqiang would take the post. Afterwards, Xi Jinping, who rarely appeared in the epidemic prevention battle, met with the WHO secretary-general. In order to stabilize the situation, he said publicly that this was an epidemic prevention battle that I "directed and deployed myself".

At this time, at least 13 major local hospitals in Wuhan had outbreaks of nosocomial infections. According to official figures, there are a total of 8,254 beds in designated hospitals in Wuhan, all of which are fully occupied; 20,629 people have been required to be quarantined at home; 5,425 mild or suspected patients have been moved into hotels or stadiums for centralized isolation. In Wuhan, the fatality rate of new coronary pneumonia is as high as 4.3%, and the mortality rate of severe cases is close to 15%, which is much higher than the average level of 0.2% in other parts of China. Not to mention, this is only official statistics. Many people have died before being diagnosed and cannot be counted on the death list.

Why did the national system fail?

China has always been considered to be good at "concentrating its strength to do big things", because of the national system, it has an efficiency advantage that democratic countries do not have in emergency mobilization. This advantage is often reflected in disaster relief, such as floods, typhoons, earthquakes, and even short-term financial crises (excluding short-term financial crises). long-term consequences). But what happened this time?

Viruses are not like earthquakes. Plague is a long-term, dynamic and close interaction between viruses and society. It is not a major disaster, but a series of endless secondary disasters. Earthquakes and tsunamis certainly have secondary disasters, but the degree of damage is far lower than the main disaster itself. For the earthquake, the rescue focus is 72 hours after the earthquake, and the militarized organization and mobilization can be highly effective in such a short time. But the plague is different. The virus spreads like water and is boundless. There is an incubation period, which cannot be simply marked and isolated in advance. There is a treatment period, and the symptoms can be mild or repeated. The real test of such a disaster is the dense capillary-like social organization network in this country. Whether it functions well or not is the test of intangible infrastructure such as medical and health care and social welfare systems, and the test of civic quality between information disclosure and panic management.

However, the development of the Chinese model just ignores the above three points: the CCP has always stifled any signs and possibilities of social organization. Since Xi came to power in 2012, it has suppressed the already weak Chinese civil society, especially NGOs and media. The purge of organizational elements such as lawyers, religious groups, etc. can be described as harsh in the style of "cutting the grass and eradicating the roots". Second, the growth of China's GDP requires very little investment in infrastructure such as public medical care and social pension benefits. Third, a strict information censorship mechanism has been in operation for many years, and deception for the purpose of maintaining stability has become a bodily instinct of the propaganda system. Under such a mechanism, it is not only difficult for the public to obtain accurate information, but their ability to distinguish and read information is also very low.

Even in terms of the CCP itself, the CCP has positioned itself as an omnipotent political party. What the plague tests is not the party’s ability to mobilize resources from the top down, but its bottom-up coordination and allocation of resources to the “last mile”. Grassroots organizational strength to solve problems. Netizens described the "black hole" that appeared over Wuhan, which vividly illustrated the failure of this point. It is not difficult to mobilize resources, but if the resources cannot reach the hands of those who need them, it is a failure of the organization; it is not difficult to block the city across the board, but in the protracted battle against the virus, the death of people who should not have been trapped is a failure of management. .

Society has been hollowed out by the long-term suppression, but why did the CCP’s own grassroots organizations fail? This question can be asked in reverse: How can a huge organization with 80 million people be effective at the grassroots level? What is the motivation for the grassroots to do things? Why not today?

In a nutshell, grassroots motivation mainly comes from three points: First, belief. Strong ideological belief is an important reason that supports a community that does not disintegrate at the end. Second, votes, if your life and death are decided by votes rather than leaders, it means that every decision you make needs to be responsible for the next, not the top. Third, interests, they are still willing to work diligently where the leaders cannot see, and one of the motivations comes from the sharing of interests.

One of the biggest differences between the era of Xi Jinping and the eras of Hu, Wen, and Jiang Li is that when the CCP stepped out of the revolutionary era and entered the stage of stable governance, the "splitting system" that maintained the balance of factions and even grassroots organizations was broken. Xi's campaign-style anti-corruption has broken the traditional bureaucratic structure of sharing profits, but at the same time, power has not been devolved to the grassroots in the form of democratic reforms, but has been condensed upwards, forming a high degree of personal dictatorship on top of the party-state system. As for belief, it has not been able to be re-established through the "party building" promoted by Xi since the collapse of the communist revolution.

As a result, the laziness and negligence of the local bureaucracy in today's China have long been an open phenomenon. Since doing things is unprofitable, doing too much is wrong, not doing well. Everything is instructed by the leaders, kowtows more, and speaks less. The basic mentality of the officials of the era, especially the grass-roots organizations, is extremely common.

From Wuhan to Hubei, the epidemic has evolved to this point, and the incompetence and hollowing out of China's local bureaucracy and governance system are only the tip of the iceberg.

Telling the truth and the power of the powerless

Back to the beginning of the article: If you go back in time for a month and you know the truth, will you go back and sound the alarm?

After Dr. Li Wenliang's death, some netizens brought up the joke again and changed the original dark humorous answer: "If the rumor is his crime, we can only mourn with the truth."

On December 30, 34-year-old Wuhan ophthalmologist Li Wenliang once reminded everyone to be careful in his group of doctors and classmates, suspecting that a new type of pneumonia virus has begun to spread, and many cases have been confirmed. After the chat records were made public, he was interviewed and warned by the local police for "spreading rumors", and he also signed a "repentance letter". Li Wenliang did not leave his post. He was infected with the new coronary pneumonia due to contact with the patient himself, and was finally diagnosed on February 1. On the same day as the diagnosis, he was in the intensive care unit, interviewed by the media under his real name, disclosed the process of witnessing the development of the epidemic, and also announced the "repentance letter" he had signed for "rumoring". On the evening of February 6, Dr. Li Wenliang passed away. The repentance letter he signed during his lifetime was circulated on the Internet, stinging countless people who suffered in this plague.

The police letter of repentance reads: "We hope you will calm down and reflect, and solemnly warn you: If you are stubborn, do not repent, and continue to carry out illegal activities, you will be punished by the law! Do you understand? "Li Wenliang wrote the answer by hand and pressed his handprint: "Understood".

Li Wenliang is not a hero, he did what every ordinary person would do, walked out of the police station, obeyed and said nothing more. But people know that a month later, he was interviewed by his real name again, and he really "didn't understand".

How powerful is "don't understand"? Javier said that if every choice made by everyone starts from "living the truth" rather than blindly obeying unconsciously, people are fundamentally breaking down the tie that power can function properly, if every A screw does this consciously, and this seemingly huge and unstoppable machine may become incapacitated. This is what Javier called "the power of the powerless," as Li Wenliang did - in his place, no more, no less, telling the truth that should be told.

What kind of changes will this kind of "do not understand" power bring about as the grief and anger brought about by the epidemic are silently passed on among the people? The humanitarian crisis has not yet eased, and the coming economic crisis is another bigger test. Will the plague that broke out in the winter of 2020 be an independent crisis or part of a chain of domino effects?