An unusually brutal reshuffle saw the officials who run Hubei and Wuhan dismissed
, Leninist parties have bad news to get out of the way, they do not hang about. In the space of a single day, February 13th, China’s ruling Communist Party fired the officials who run the province and city at the heart of the epidemic of covid-19, announced a big jump in the number of recorded virus infections there, and sent in hardliners close to Xi Jinping, the country’s supreme leader, to clean up the mess.
Public anger is seething over weeks of bungling and cover-ups by officials responsible for fighting the virus in Hubei and Wuhan, the provincial capital. A handful of brave doctors, academics and relatively outspoken journalists have been pleading with national leaders to allow for more openness and free debate to avoid further deadly policy blunders.
After some days of hesitation, when Mr Xi was unusually absent from state media, the Chinese president and party chief appeared on February 10th in Beijing to inspect a hospital and address hard-pressed doctors in Wuhan by video link . Wearing a face mask and submitting to a nurse who took his temperature, Mr Xi pledged victory in a “people’s war” against the virus, but also expressed concern about the economic costs of nationwide quarantines.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
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