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“World Leader”: Spain Found 70 Percent Error Rate in China’s Coronavirus Testing Kits

To speed up the coronavirus testing, Spain ordered 5.5 million testing kits from China. However, Spanish media reported that the Health Bureau in Spain had confirmed that China’s testing kits had a quality problem.

In theory, these testing kits were supposed to have at least an 80 percent accuracy rate. But the actual results in Spain showed only 30 percent of the results were accurate. A microbiology expert who participated in the testing of the kits said, “Using these quick testing kits has no meaning.”

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Infection Count: 60 Percent of Hidden Infection Cases in Wuhan Are Not Reported

According to Radio Free Asia, China News Week Magazine reported an article published on Nature on March 20, saying that hidden infections may account for 60 percent of the total novel coronavirus infections. This conclusion was based on an article submitted to medRxiv by the research team led by Wu Tangchun, School of Public Health, Huazhong Science and Technology University.

The article by Wu’s team analyzed the data from Wuhan Health Commissions and built a math model. Based on their model, at least 59 percent of infection cases in Wuhan have not been reported or recorded, including asymptomatic cases and mild cases.

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“World Leader”: The Coronavirus Testing Kits Czech Republic Bought from China Have an 80 Percent Error Rate

Xinhua reported that the Czech Republic bought 150,000 novel coronavirus testing kits and, on March 18, used its military plane to ship them back. “Czech Republic Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch said these kits would be sent to the locked down areas where the pandemic is severe. It can give results in 20 minutes.” Xinhua said that Czech’s traditional testing equipment needed 6 hours to give a result.

“The Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said that they received considerable help from China’s Embassy to the Czech Republic in sending a military plane to China to bring the emergency medical supplies back.”

However, on March 23, the Czech news media iROZHLAS reported that 80 percent of China’s quick testing kits produced the wrong result in their testing.

Experts reported on this high error rate at a pandemic information meeting that a regional hygienist Pavla Svrcinova hosted. Svrcinova said that these test kits produced “fake positives” and “fake negatives” when they were compared with the traditional testing results. “It is fortunate that we took this forward-thinking action (to validate the testing kits).”

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Propaganda and Lies: Mainland Chinese Calling the Returning Chinese “Flying Thousands of Miles to Poison Chinese”

To portray itself as the world leader in fighting the novel coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been reporting an extremely low rate of infection cases or even a zero count in many provinces for many days.

However, this propaganda campaign has backfired. The propaganda lured many Chinese who were overseas, especially Chinese students who studied in other countries, to returned to China because it is a “safe haven” as the other parts of the world are reporting high rates of infection.

The CCP did not anticipate this and did not want them, since it was still fighting the coronavirus and had no energy to deal with returning Chinese. The CCP also worried about the potential for importing infections.

China’s official report showed 21 new infection cases on March 17, with 20 coming from overseas.

Beijing reactivated the Xiaotangshan Hospital, a hospital set up during the SARS outbreak in 2003 for the primary purpose of isolating the confirmed patients instead of treating them. Their actual death count was unknown but was guessed to be high. This time, the hospital, with over 1,000 beds, will primarily hold the people found to be at risk after a Custom’s check. It will include confirmed patients and suspected patients.

Postings criticizing the returning Chinese spread on China’s Internet, such as, “You were not here when we were developing the motherland, but you are the fastest to fly back thousands of miles to poison the Chinese here” or, “The motherland treated you as a child but you treated the motherland as a fool.”

A Weibo comment said, “Those overseas Chinese should know that you are coming back to take refuge, not to be our masters. The Chinese people are all suffering a hard time now. Go back if you can’t stand it.”

Another Weibo article made a call to move all people entering China to Wuhan. “Instead of returning to home to create the risk of getting your own family quarantined, why not go to Wuhan to pass the hard times with the people there?”

Many overseas Chinese felt hurt. “When the epidemic exploded in China,” a person said, “many people and I donated money and bought face masks and protective clothing to send to China. Now many of us are sad: we are discriminated against in foreign countries, but also cursed when we go back to China.”

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Infection Count: Wuhan’s Internal Number Was Much Higher Than the Government’s Count

Recently, in order to portray that it has successfully controlled the coronavirus so it can resume production, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been reporting unbelievable low numbers of infection counts in Wuhan and Hubei Province.

From March 14 to 16, the officially released number showed that the daily rate of new confirmed cases was 4, 4, and 1, respectively. The Epoch Times reported that it has obtained the March 14 “Novel Coronavirus Nucleic Acid Test Daily Report” to the Wuhan Health Commission. The report stated that the whole city conducted 16,320 nucleic acid tests on that day. Among those, 91 tests were first-time positive (newly infected).

That would mean that there were at least 91 confirmed cases internally reported within the Wuhan system on March 14, though Beijing only published 4 on that day and 4 on the next day.

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Propaganda and Lies: Overseas Chinese Fell for the Propaganda That China’s Epidemic Was Over

To portray itself as the world leader in fighting the novel coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been reporting extremely low infection cases or even zero counts in many provinces for many days. Thus many Chinese overseas, thought that China’s epidemic was over and returned to China to seek a “safe haven” as other parts of the world are reporting high infections.

However, after landing in China, they soon realized that things were much different from what they thought. The “motherland” did not want them.

Media reported China’s airports were packed with Chinese returning “home.” They were all tested. If they tested clean they were put under 14 days of quarantine. Some people complained about the forced-quarantines and the violation of human rights. It was a concept that overseas Chinese had, but people in the mainland had already yielded to the CCP’s rule

Some complained about the living conditions of the quarantine, which ranged from no pure water to drink and no water to take a shower or wash clothes, to the room not being cleaned from the previous quarantine use and the windows and doors being locked from the outside (thus, people quarantined inside could not get out).

Some also complained that they were forced to pay high quarantine fees to the hotels.

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Propaganda and Lies: The Truth about the Video “An American Spread Virus in Wuhan Subway”

To defuse its accountability, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tried to blame the United States for sending the coronavirus to China. One of its accusations was that U.S. soldiers brought it to China during the Military World Games in Wuhan in October 2019.

Since March 16, a video of an American spreading the virus on the Wuhan subway train during the Military World Games has widely spread on Weibo and WeChat, the two most popular Chinese social media platforms. In the video, a foreigner pulled out his face mask, licked his fingers, and then wiped his hands on the handles of the subway cart. The video displayed the Chinese subtitle “During the Military World Games, Americans were spreading the virus. Please watch it. The U.S. is so awful!” Many Chinese netizens criticized the United States out of anger after watching the video.

The rumor creator also said, “The U.S. delegation, after the Military World Games was over, went to visit shopping centers, supermarkets, and trains. What if they were to spread the virus?”

The video was originally posted by account “Souf” on Twitter on March 10. According to a report by a British media, the scene happened in Brussels. The Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company said, “This man was drunk and had been arrested by the police and the staff from our security department. The train cart was disinfected and taken out of service.”

The Chinese characters in the video were added by Weibo account Miaoxiangbuyi, whose holder was certified to be Xu Xibiao, working for the Kaili City government, Guizhou Province. Xu’s job was to monitor and exercise Internet control.

The website of Chinese Information at Phoenix published the news and then summarized the CCP’s method of creating the rumor as: starting with netizens’ “bold speculation” that U.S. biochemical soldiers set the virus in Wuhan, following with a media rumor of a “maybe” accusation, then an official rumor “it might be the U.S. soldiers who brought the virus to Wuhan,” and finally sealing the case with an official/private mixed rumor (a government staff member sent an individual posting) of the video, “U.S. soldiers deliberately spread the virus during the Military World Games.”

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Leadership: The Wide Spread of a WeChat Posting Calling for Politburo Meeting to Remove Xi Jinping

A WeChat posting calling for an “Emergency Enlarged Meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Politburo” was spreading widely in China. The meeting is to “discuss whether Xi Jinping is suitable to continue to be the President of the country, the CCP’s General Secretary, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.”

The article listed many topics to discuss, which all challenge the current administration’s policies:

  • As China has recently made enemies with many countries, should it return to Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “maintaining a low profile”?
  • Is the CCP higher or is the law higher? Can the ruling party be above the Constitution?
  • Should private companies be the main economic force in China or the state-owned enterprises?
  • Should citizen’s rights be sacrificed for the government’s stability maintenance?
  • Can the private sector run media?
  • Should the judicial system be independent (from the CCP)?
  • Can citizens criticize the government?
  • Is there a need to let the public monitor the government?
  • Should the CCP and state power be separated?
  • Should officials report their assets?
  • Is it important to reunify Taiwan under China or to keep regional peace?
  • Is Hong Kong’s prosperity more important or the central government’s authority (over Hong Kong) more important?
  • Can Hong Kong have its own local elections?

The article suggested the formation a three-person group with Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Wang Qishan to organize the meeting.

Some media used the screenshot of a repost of the article by Chen Ping, the founder of Sun TV who lives in Hong Kong. Chen said that he just received the article and felt it rational and thus reposted it. He did not know who wrote it.

Chen also said that the article reflected many people’s thoughts. “Now eventually it needs a (solution to fix the current policy) and it cannot always be this way. It is not good for China if the current policies continue.”

Chen is a princeling. Media have also linked this article to another criticizing-Xi article by Ren Zhiqiang, another princeling (see Chinascope posting: Public Opinion: Ren Zhiqiang’s Article: “A Clown Who Stripped Naked and Insisted on Continuing to Be an Emperor”).

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