Authorities in Qingdao, China, on Wednesday and Thursday (Oct. 15) made two successive decisions to appoint and remove Sui Zhenhua, Party secretary and director of the Qingdao Health and Wellness Commission (QHHC), who was suspended from his post and placed under investigation. In addition, the party group of the Municipal Health and Wellness Committee decided to remove Deng Kai, deputy secretary of the party committee and director of the City Chest Hospital, from his position to be investigated.
The notice did not state the specific reasons for the removal of these two officials. However, it is clear that the sanctions they received are related to the latest outbreak of the new coronavirus in Qingdao, which is the beginning of a campaign to pursue responsibility from higher levels of government.
Similar practices have been seen in Wuhan, where the first outbreaks occurred. In February, a number of key officials in Hubei Province and Wuhan were removed from their positions due to inadequate epidemic prevention, including former Hubei Party Secretary Jiang Chaoliang, Wuhan Party Secretary Ma Guoqiang, Hubei Party Secretary Zhang Jin and Director Liu Ying.
It is unclear whether any higher-ranking Qingdao city officials will fall from grace as a result of the outbreak.
On October 11, the initial three new coronavirus infections in Qingdao were all linked to the city’s chest hospital. The number of infections later increased to 13.
The hospital immediately implemented a lockdown, and all 388 employees, escorts, and patients in the hospital have been determined to be in close contact with the virus. The Qingdao Municipal Health Commission reported that the number of close contacts later increased to 520.
Because the epidemic backlash occurred during the National Day holiday and the movement of people was so extensive, Qingdao authorities decided to conduct a comprehensive virus test on the city’s 9.5 million residents. Reportedly, the testing is almost complete, with 7.646 million test results already available. According to Qingdao officials, no new cases of infection have been found.
However, observers say that based on the chaotic response of local authorities during the Wuhan outbreak, the suppression of “whistle blowers” and the concealment of the truth and manipulation of data, it seems unreal that Qingdao has not found a single case of infection in its massive search of nearly 10 million people.
Officials told a news conference at 10 a.m. Thursday (Oct. 15) on the epidemic prevention and control in Qingdao that 13 cases have been diagnosed, including one critical case, three severe cases, seven normal cases and two light cases.
China’s National Health and Wellness Commission reported Thursday that there were 11 new cases in the past 24 hours, 10 of which were imported from abroad. The other case was an asymptomatic infection discovered last month and reclassified yesterday as a confirmed case.
According to official statistics, China now has a total of 85,622 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths.
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