On April 17, the Wuhan Municipal Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Center issued a notice to revise the infection count and death count in Wuhan City, Hubei Province.

#1: The report said that, according to a thorough check, by April 16, the cumulative infection count in Wuhan was 50,333, with an adjustment of 325 more cases; the cumulative death count was 3,869, with an adjustment of 1,290 additions. The report said the data gap was caused by people dying at home or by medical facilities’ inability to report data promptly. (China’s official government website)

#2: In his tweet, President Trump expressed doubt about the revised numbers because it is still too small compared to the numbers in the U.S.: “China has just announced a doubling in the number of their deaths from the Invisible Enemy. It is far higher than that and far higher than the U.S., not even close!”

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• Death Count: Wuhan Will Distribute Estimated Over 40,000 Urns
• Death Count: Placing Patient in Corpse Bag While Alive
• Death Count: On February 1, Tencent Reported 24,589 Deaths from Coronavirus
  
• Death Count: Wuhan Has Unusually High Level of Sulfur Dioxide Gas
• Death Count: (Unconfirmed) Huoshenshan Hospital Has Emptied 200 Rooms Every Day

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To help their people survive the hardship due to the widespread coronavirus pandemic, major countries have developed economic stimulus packages and provided money to their people. However, China did not do that this time. Beijing is betting that the consumption vouchers that it pushed the local governments to hand out will build up consumption in China.

These vouchers, normally will expire within a certain period, e.g. 30 days, and are limited to consumption in the local area.

Stock Times reported that Li Xunlei, Chief Economist at Zhongtai Securities, a large security holding company under the Shandong Provincial government, said that, in 2009, when handling the secondary mortgage crisis in China, Hanzhou City, Zhejiang Province offered its residents 1 billion yuan (US $140 million) in consumption vouchers, and the city’s total annual consumption increased by 15.5 billion yuan. This showed a 15 times leverage from the consumption voucher.

Li is against the government spending so much money on infrastructure development, which does not directly stimulate consumption, and also creates excess housing supply and future problems.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Economy: 460,000 Companies Stopped Operations and Tens of Millions of People Will Lose Their Jobs
• Economy: 150 to 200 Million People in China May Lose Their Jobs
• Economy: China’s Exports in January and February Dropped 17 Percent
• Economy: Near 8,000 Performances Cancelled in China, Causing 1 Billion Yuan Loss

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Associated Press (AP) has obtained an official document from China that showed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials knew the severity of the coronavirus and the likelihood of person-to-person transmission on January 14, 2020. The government passed down instructions to local health officials to take cautious measures, but not to disclose it to the public. The government didn’t admit the epidemic outbreak and the person-to-person transmission to the public until January 20, six days later.

AP received documents from an anonymous source in the medical field and verified the authenticity of the documents.

A memo in the documents states that, on January 14, China’s National Health Commission held a confidential teleconference with provincial health officials to convey instructions on the coronavirus from CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan. The memo does not specify what those instructions were.

Ma Xiaowei, Director of China’s National Health Commission, said at the conference, “The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event.”

Under a section titled “Sober Understanding of the Situation,” the memo said that, “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.”

“With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high. All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic.”

Ma demanded officials unite around Xi and made clear that political considerations and social stability were key priorities during the long lead-up to China’s two biggest political meetings of the year in March.

The National Health Commission also distributed a 63-page set of instructions to provincial health officials. The instructions ordered health officials nationwide to identify suspected cases, hospitals to open fever clinics, and doctors and nurses to wear protective gear. The instructions were marked “internal” — “not to be spread on the internet,” “not to be publicly disclosed.”

In public, officials continued to downplay the threat, pointing to the 41 cases that were public at the time.

“We have reached the latest understanding that the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission is low,” Li Qun, the head of the China Center for Diseases Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) emergency center, told Chinese state television on Jan. 15. A CDC notice shows on that day that Li was appointed leader of a group preparing emergency plans for the level one response.

On Jan. 20, Xi Jinping issued his first public comments on the virus, saying the outbreak “must be taken seriously” and every possible measure pursued. A leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, announced for the first time on national television that the virus was transmissible from person to person.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Hiding Information: Wuhan Central Hospital Did Not Allow Staffs to Talk About Coronavirus
• Hiding Information: Wuhan Newspaper Said Doctor Reported Infection Cases in December and Authorities Took Actions Immediately
• Hiding Information: Expert Group Members Suggest Hubei Officials Hiding Information
• Hiding Information: Residents Shouted “Fake” When Sun Chunlan Visited a Residential Neighborhood
• Hiding Information: Xi’an Confirmed a Local Infection but Its Province Reported Zero

Source: Associated Press, April 15, 2020
https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9

As the coronavirus pandemic keeps spreading throughout the world, there have been concerns among the Chinese whether China will run into a food shortage.

#1: At least 17 countries announced restrictions on exports of agricultural products, including wheat and rice. (Caixin)

#2: On April 4, Wang Hong, Director of the Department of Safe Warehousing and Science and Technology, State Food and Material Reserve Bureau, stated at a press conference, “We have built three defense lines. The first one is an ample raw food reserve. The second one is to build 10 to 15 days of ready-to-consume food reserves in large and mid-sized cities and regions that are likely to have price fluctuations. The third one is to set up a number of emergency food processing companies, emergency supply sites, emergency distribution centers, and emergency storage and shipping companies. 88.2 percent of these emergency food processing companies have resumed production. Their daily production capacity can feed the entire population of China, 1.4 billion people, for a day. (China News Agency)

Related posting on Chinascope:

• Food Supply: Will China have Food Shortage This Year?

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China is concerned about the people infected with coronavirus entering its country from Russia. On April 13, Heilongjiang Province, a major province neighboring Russia, issued an order to reward people for reporting anyone illegally crossing the border.

The Heilongjiang Leading Group, which issued the order in a Response to the Novel Coronavirus, stated that the province fully encourages people to report relevant information regarding people illegally crossing the Heilongjiang border. A person who gives a tip to the government will receive a 3,000 yuan (US $430) award if the information is verified. People who arrest the person crossing the border illegally and hand him to the authorities will receive a 5,000 yuan award.

Related postings on Chinascope:

• Infection Count: Heilongjiang Is Preparing for Epidemic Outbreak
• Infection Count: China Started Reporting Count of Asymptomatic Virus Carriers
• Infection Count: China Does Not Count Patients Who Became Negative But Then Positive Again
• Infection Count: Hubei Was Unlocked, But Beijing Does not Want Anyone from Hubei to Come
• Infection Count: 60 Percent Hidden Infection Cases in Wuhan Are Not Reported

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