Secrets Behind the Citywide Tests in Wuhan
On May 11, more than one month after Wuhan reopened, the authorities suddenly announced that citywide nucleic acid testing would be conducted for over 11 million residents in Wuhan after six new cases were reported.
The testing would be done within 10 days, and it is called "10 days of mass battle."
People have asked: Why is such a dramatic move needed if there were only 6 new cases? Is it feasible to test 11 million people in only 10 days? Why did they do it?
Well, actually, things may not be as simple as we see them on the surface; and there could be much deeper reasons lying behind this "10 days of mass battle". Today let’s try to explore what the secrets are.
Historical Numbers of Tests
First of all, let’s check a little bit of the history of Wuhan’s nucleic acid testing, during the peak of the outbreak.
When the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, first compiled data on the epidemic, it focused only on the number of confirmed cases and death tolls. It didn’t take much consideration into the testing, or the testing numbers.
At the early stage of Wuhan’s lockdown, there were not enough testing kits, or qualified testing personnel or institutions to do the tests, so the CCP just ignored the testing altogether.
On January 27, the Wuhan Health Commission announced that "from January 23 to 27, 4086 tests were conducted, among them 712 came back as positive".
However, the confirmed cases announced that day were 1,590, more than twice the number of the positive test results. From this we knew that nucleic acid testing is not the main means of confirming cases then.
On January 28, Wuhan Health Commission said that "the number of fever outpatient consultations increased day by day, with more than 15,000 people during peak hours", "from January 22 to 27, the city received a total of 75,221 fever patients in fever outpatient consultations". At that time, the total test number is just 4086.
On Jan. 29, the Wuhan Health Commission said that, because the virus was very contagious, and that the researchers needed to gradually get familiar with the testing process, so there wouldn’t be more than 2000 tests in the beginning, which means, the maximum testing capacity of the city was only nearly 2000 per day.
This confirms claims made by many Wuhan residents back then that a large number of patients could not get a test.
On February 6, Wuhan Health Commission said that "Wuhan City has announced 64 fever clinics to facilitate the screening of fever patients in each district for isolation treatment."
This shows that 2 weeks after the lockdown of Wuhan, the city was still mainly relying on symptoms of fever instead of virus testing results to judge whether to quarantine or give treatment to patients.
At the same time, without a testing result, one’s case couldn’t be confirmed, nor could one get admitted into the hospital; and the government wouldn’t cover the medical costs if one didn’t have a confirmed case.
On March 3, Wuhan Health Commission announced that “The number of nucleic acid tests on Mar 1 was as high as 18,127 people”, and half of the tests were for suspected cases and close contact cases.
At that stage, Wuhan had been in lockdown for over a month, so the test number of some 18 K was not a large number in any sense.
At that time, the CCP was trying to create a “peak”, an inflection point for the epidemic, by discharging a large number of patients from the hospital, so nearly half of the test capacities were used to repeatedly test patients who were going to be discharged.
After that, the authorities stopped announcing new testing numbers. It is likely that no more testing had been done since then.
On the other hand, the accuracy of the testing remains low and they had to do the test repeatedly on the same person. The international community learned that the accuracy ratio of Chinese test kits was as low as 20-30% only after some countries imported them in March.
On March 26, Wuhan Health Commission again announced a new testing number, saying that 9,844 tests were conducted on March 24. It shows that the number of testing had decreased. Perhaps the CCP had realized that testing was not that useful, so they stopped testing, as they wanted to have zero new cases anyway. If you stop doing testing, you of course won’t get any new cases. That’s why we kept seeing no new reported cases in Wuhan for as long as 35 days, until May 9, when 6 new cases were announced.
Defeating the US and Other Countries
So what’s the problem of not doing tests? Because now we have international comparisons.
After the pandemic spread to Europe and the US, many countries placed great importance on testing capabilities, and the media kept updating daily test numbers.
That’s why the CCP suddenly realized that it had forgotten to make up enough testing numbers. Countries have already begun to question the epidemic data released by the CCP, so lacking testing data would soon become another huge problem for the CCP.
To make this up, the CCP had already secretly changed its testing numbers, before announcing the mass testing in Wuhan.
On 8 April, on the day when Wuhan reopened, Wuhan Health Commission announced that the number of tests on that day had suddenly increased to "27,649", and on April 19, Wuhan Health Commission again announced that the number of tests had reached "an average of 46,000 per day", and that "since March 18, the city has tested 627,000 people".
The city of Wuhan has a population of 11 million people, so 627,000 is still a very small number, and that doesn’t look good enough after the city had been locked down for more than two months.
On May 1, Wuhan Health Commission again announced that on April 30, 57,938 tests were done, which again shows that the CCP was trying to make up the numbers.
The reason for the CCP to do so is that on April 30, the UK exceeded its target of 100,000 tests per day. And the US has even bigger test numbers. As of now, the total number of tests in the US is nearly 12 million.
So, that is the main reason why the CCP has to do a citywide test in Wuhan. It has been boasting about its status as a “Great Power in Defeating the Pandemic”, so the number of total tests much “defeat” that of the United States and other countries too.
Preparing for Potential International Investigations
The international pressure to hold the CCP accountable for the pandemic is mounting, and the CCP certainly feels it.
There have also been criticisms that the CCP had discharged patients without really having them cured.
So, by conducting mass, citywide testing, the CCP can later announce that a certain number of “asymptomatic infections” have been found. When people accuse the CCP for covering up the outbreak or irresponsibly discharging patients, they can say, “Oh, there were so many ‘asymptomatic’ cases. What can we do?”
If there are any more outbreaks, they can also use “asymptomatic infections” as an excuse for failing to control the disease.
Digesting Returned Test Kits
Another reason for the mass test could be to “digest” the returned test kits. I think we’ve read many news reports about countries returning testing kits they imported from China after finding them no good.
For example, Britain purchased 2 million test kits from China for at least $20 million, only to find them prove ineffective and have to be returned.
Many countries experienced the same thing. So the total number of these returned test kits is likely to be close to 10 million units.
You know China is ruled by CCP. It is impossible for a company to gain export permission if this company doesn’t have close ties to the CCP, or is not directly owned by the CCP. The real bosses behind those companies that could export the test kits to other countries are naturally powerful people at all levels of the CCP. So the CCP naturally didn’t want to have those people suffer the losses of the returned test kits.
So, that’s how a citywide test campaign was needed: To “digest” the returned test kits.
Making More Money
On May 15, the Hubei Provincial Health Insurance Bureau and Hubei Health Commission jointly issued a notice, saying that from May 16 onwards, the price of nucleic acid testing would be adjusted from not higher than 180 yuan, or $25, to not higher than 132 yuan, or $18.57, and antibody testing shall be decreased from not higher than 50 yuan, or about $7, to not higher than 40 yuan, or about $6.
So, if one person does two tests, that’s about 172 yuan, or $25. For 11 million people, the total cost, or income for organizations that provide the testing service, will be nearly 19 billion yuan, or 275 million US dollars. That’s big business, right?
Chinese media Caixin reported that the citywide test in Wuhan would be mainly conducted by “third party” companies, and hospitals and CDCs of each district in Wuhan would help with taking the samples. This means that those “third party” companies will of course gain the payments from the tests.
On May 5, Hubei Province and Wuhan City Medical Security Bureau issued a notice, saying that nucleic acid testing would be temporarily included in the medical insurance policies, and the individual out-of-pocket ratio is 10% to 30%; while Wuhan City inpatient nucleic acid testing individual out-of-pocket ratio is set at 10%.
So, regardless who is going to pay for the test, whether it’s the individuals, the government, or the insurance companies, those “third party” companies will have much to gain. How much corruption lies behind this? Nobody knows.
Political Needs
Another reason is, the CCP is going to hold its most important annual political conferences soon, on May 21. The conferences are the conference for the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
So, by conducting such a mass testing, the CCP can again boast its “achievement” in battling the pandemic, and can show to Chinese people and to the world how hard the CCP is working to battle the pandemic.
Can the CCP Really Do it?
However, can the CCP really do it?
According to Wuhan Health Commission, on May 10, 39,735 nucleic acid tests were conducted. This means only less than 40 K tests were done on that day.
State media Hubei Daily reported on May 14 that there are currently 63 nucleic acid testing institutions and 386 sampling sites in Wuhan, and the daily nucleic acid testing capacity in Wuhan can reach 100,000 under “extreme conditions”.
That is to say, the maximum amount of tests that can be done each day is 100,000. But to finish testing 11 million people in 10 days, you need to do 1 million in a day.
So, can they really do it? Or, will they just announce they have done it at some stage? You can make your own judgment.
A Show, A Risking Campaign, Or Sheer “Nonsense”?
Since the announcement of the "10 days of mass battle", videos and pictures of people lining up in close distances and waiting to be tested are being circulated on the Internet. In one audio file, a woman could be heard calling the mass testing a “stupid decision”.
She asks, “In the middle of this testing process, what happens if there is cross-infection? When you are tested, you need to open your mouth and take the mask off, right? How can medical workers change their masks and gloves in such a short period of time? How do you guarantee disinfection? Then there are those who cough and sneeze in the process and the air around them is polluted, how do you disinfect in time? These are questions you didn't even think about, and then you just ran out to have 10 million more people tested. Stupid decision, such a stupid decision!”
She also said that her son had not left home for months, and had not been infected. However, going out to do the test could get her son infected. What nonsense!
Citizens are also worried about leaks of personal information too. A netizen revealed that at a testing site in Jiangan District, everyone was required to show their ID before the testing, and the staff would take a picture of everyone holding their IDs. The netizen said this is illegally gathering people’s personal information.
Other residents said the same thing happened in other districts too.
On May 17, the official Weibo Account of Jiangan District published a post, saying that the photos containing people’s ID cards have been deleted, and this kind of thing won’t happen again in the future.
But the public is not convinced. They ask, “Why haven’t those people been punished? How can you prove that those photos have been deleted? If they’ve already been forwarded to others, what can we do?”
Deleted Reports (Again)
Okay, these are some of the secrets behind Wuhan’s mass testing. How many tests have been done? How many “asymptomatic infections” have been found? We have no idea.
Several days ago, some Chinese media reported that initial testing results in Wuhan show that at least 500K have been infected. News titles can still be found if you search for them. However, when you click on those titles, you'll find the reports have been deleted.
So here we go again: In CCP ruled China, everything can be a “national secret”. We may never be able to find out all the real numbers, or truths.
So, when the CCP promises that they will allow an independent investigation, don’t trust them either. They will try to destroy the evidence first and corrupt the investigation, just like what they have been doing all the time with international organizations and initiatives.
Thank you for watching. Truth does save lives. I’ve just opened a subscription channel at SubsribeStar. Please subscribe to and share it!
Thank you. See you next time.
5/18/2020
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