The shortage of medical supplies has created tension between local governments as everyone works on control and prevention of the novel coronavirus. Several places have been reported for confiscating other locality’s medical supplies.
- In early February, Dali City, Yunnan Province, confiscated hundreds of boxes of face masks belonging to several cities, including Huangshi City, Hubei Province, Chongqing City, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, and Cixi City, Zhejiang Province.
- After customs in Shengyang City, Liaoning Province detained 100,000 face masks of Qingdao City, Shandong Province, Qingdao drafted an official notice that “following the reciprocal principle,” their customs will detain the face masks that Shenyang bought from Korea.
- Mengzi City, Yunnan Province detained over 100,000 face masks that Liucheng County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region had purchased.
The most recent case was that the Shanghai Armed Police went to Rizhao City, Shandong Province to escort 5,000 protective suits back to Shanghai. They drove over a thousand kilometer (over 600 miles) in 28 hours and successfully brought the suits back to Shanghai.
1. Excerpt in Chinese:
湖北的黄石市和重庆市在本周指责云南省大理市，拦截了本属于他们的数百箱口罩。
很快，人们发现被大理市扣下的口罩并不仅限是发往重庆市，还有湖北黄石、四川成都、浙江慈溪等地。其中，黄石市距离此次疫情的中心武汉不足100公里，确诊患者超过600人，而大理市目前有7名确诊者。
例如在同一日，一纸加盖山东省青岛市发改委公章的红头文件也引发轩然大波。文件中声称，青岛10万只口罩被辽宁省沈阳市的海关暂扣后，将“按照对等原则”，通过海关扣留沈阳从韩国采购的口罩。
在另一起独立案件中，广西自治区柳城县购买的十余万只口罩在云南蒙自市被扣留。柳城县的政府人员亲自来到蒙自市公安局希望办理对接手续，但被告知由于口罩“无正规手续”，需要作进一步调查。
Source: BBC, February 8, 2020
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51424208
2. Excerpt in Chinese:
近日，武警上海总队赴山东日照押运防疫物资。参与任务的官兵夜以继日驱车上千公里，顺利将5000件防护服押运回沪，前后总共用时28个小时。这批物资将陆续分发至上海各大医院供一线医务人员使用。辛苦了，武警官兵们#武警驱车上千公里运防护服#
Source: Weibo, February 11, 2020
https://m.weibo.cn/status/4470877871159873