Local govts in China caught in a dilemma amid virus battle

The sudden appearance of a new infection in Wuhan on Monday - which had reported zero new cases for three days - raises questions of whether China, driven by a need for economic rejuvenation, might have prematurely declared victory.

Much of this comes down to the role of provincial officials: While keen to heed the central government's call to resume work to kick-start the economy, they also have to manage a still-developing public health crisis.

Hubei province, once the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, has in recent weeks seen a slide in cases after a nearly nine-week lockdown, and has been gradually lifting restrictions.

The provincial government announced yesterday that traffic restrictions will be eased, beginning today, and will be completely lifted in Wuhan, the worst-hit city, by April 8.

All this comes just two weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the city, declaring "victory" over the virus, as the world's second-largest economy tried to get back to work.

Since then, the number of new infections in the province had declined steadily and a nation held its breath last weekend when zero new local infections were reported. But the Hubei health authorities yesterday reported a new confirmed case - a doctor in Wuhan believed to have been infected while at work.

Another sign that the worst may not be over: Medical teams being asked to stay behind in Wuhan.

After 12,000 reinforcement medical personnel were given a hero's send-off across Hubei last week, the infectious diseases prevention and control team was ordered to stay, Caixin reported.

Questions also remain about the veracity of China's numbers, given the size of the country and local governments' bureaucratic penchant for presenting only good news.

In recent days, reports have surfaced in various Chinese media about patients being denied testing by local officials.

Much has also been made about the fact that asymptomatic patients are not added to the official tally, a policy stated in coronavirus circulars released by the National Health Commission (NHC) since last month.

The World Health Organisation says 80 per cent of coronavirus infections are mild or asymptomatic. The NHC now requires such patients, once detected, to be quarantined for 14 days, but they are counted as part of the official tally only if they develop symptoms.

Excluding the asymptomatic patients gives local officials a tool to "manipulate the data", noted Dr Shan Wei, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute.

With the central government's push for companies to resume operations, local governments are under pressure to contain the outbreak amid a second wave of mostly imported infections.

Having spent most of last month in a virtual shutdown, the Chinese economy has taken a beating, with S&P Global Ratings predicting its gross domestic product growth rate would slow to 2.9 per cent this year.

Recovery is likely to be further hindered by the pandemic that has brought much of the rest of the world to a standstill.

"The central government is actually giving them a dual task that is somewhat contradictory - maintaining zero new cases on the one hand, and jump-starting the economy on the other," Dr Shan said, adding that this serves as an incentive to under-report the data, but also leaves them to take the fall should anything go wrong.

There is now a conflict of priority for local governments, which have to balance their superiors' demands with the population's frustration at being locked down for more than nine weeks, said Professor Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong Baptist University.

"We don't have a full picture of Wuhan, so we don't know whether it is in conflict with Beijing," he told The Straits Times. "But the narrative from Beijing now is that all the new cases are imported and the local officials are being told to toe the line."