Wall Street Journal 08_04_2020

A12| Wednesday, April 8, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

A vendor handed food to a customer over a barricade surrounding a residential compound in Wuhan on Monday.

ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

confirmed the uncle died of

coronavirus, told the family

they couldn’t retrieve his re-

mains, but could collect his

ashes after 15 days, Ms. Wang

said.

“I felt like we were aban-

doned by the government and

society,” she said. “The whole

city was left to its fate: If you

got the virus, you suffered. No

one was going to save you.”

Many countries, including

the U.S. and Italy, face their

own undercounting problems in

trying to scale up testing and

compile accurate data. Italy’s

death toll is far higher than re-

ported, a recent Wall Street

Journal analysis found.

Return to life

While some life, and traffic,

has returned to Wuhan’s streets

in recent days, most shops and

restaurants are still closed. Lo-

cal officials in full protective

gear still guard entrances to

residential neighborhoods,

some of which are barricaded

with metal fencing and awning.

The city has said curbs on

movements in and out of some

housing complexes will remain

in place after Wednesday, de-

spite earlier expectations they

would be eased.

Authorities who had cut

back on testing after conditions

improved have ramped them

back up, testing 12,000 people

a day on average the past two

weeks—60% more than New

York City. Nationwide testing

numbers haven’t been made

public.

Until April 1, China didn’t

publish figures for asymptom-

atic cases, which it defines as

people who don’t yet show

symptoms but have tested posi-

tive and could be infectious.

Since then, Wuhan authori-

ties have reported 194 new as-

ymptomatic cases. They also

said a total of 658 asymptom-

atic cases were under medical

observation as of Monday.

Before the article was de-

leted online, Health Times, a

publication affiliated with the

Communist Party’s official Peo-

ple’s Daily newspaper, quoted a

senior doctor in Wuhan saying

there could be 10,000 to 20,

asymptomatic cases there, ac-

cording to a survey done in the

previous three days.

The doctor, Yang Jiong, di-

rector of respiratory medicine

at Wuhan’s Zhongnan Hospital,

described such cases as “quite

scary,” but added they didn’t

appear to be very infectious. Dr.

Yang didn’t respond to requests

for comment.

“Tough lockdowns in China

the Harvard T.H. Chan School

of Public Health, co-wrote a re-

cent study that estimated Wu-

han had a cumulative total of

125,959 cases by Feb. 18, and

that at least 59% were “unas-

certained” on any given day,

most likely because they had no

symptoms or only mild ones.

Theextentofasecondwave

“will depend on what strategy

will be implemented on detect-

ing and isolating those cases

without symptoms,” she said.

“This is the million-dollar ques-

tion.”

China’s National Health

Commission said 1,033 asymp-

tomatic cases were being moni-

tored as of Monday, but it still

hasn’t provided figures or esti-

mates for before April 1.

Another uncertainty is the

total number of people China

has tested nationwide. Wuhan

has said it has performed

777,000 tests—enough to cover

7% of the city’s population and

more than five times the level

in Lombardy, Italy’s worst af-

fected area.

The testing volume appears

to be much lower elsewhere in

China. Some epidemiologists

worry that local officials may

have deliberately scaled back

testing to satisfy political de-

mands to show they have the

pandemic under control, and to

shift blame for any rebound

onto cases imported from

abroad.

Consensus

Inside the White House,

there is broad consensus

among senior advisers that

China’s public reporting on cor-

onavirus data is unreliable. Of-

ficials cautioned that U.S. intel-

ligence analysts haven’t

concluded unambiguously that

Mr. Xi’s government knows the

true extent of its coronavirus

pandemic and is deliberately

obfuscating those figures. A

White House spokesman didn’t

respond to a request for com-

ment.

One former official said

there is some tension between

the White House and intelli-

gence analysts, who are said to

feel that some Trump adminis-

tration officials are cherry-pick-

ing intelligence reports to put

China in a bad light.

One U.S. official asked rhe-

torically whether the problem

lay with obfuscation by China’s

government, or local officials’

playing down the problem.

“The answer is all of the

above,” he said.

—Michael C. Bender and

Wenxin Fan contributed to

this article.

broke many chains of transmis-

sion, but it’s unlikely that all

the cases have been stamped

out,” said David Hui, professor

of respiratory medicine at the

Chinese University of Hong

Kong’s faculty of medicine.

“The evidence is in the number

of asymptomatic cases in the

community.” He added, “We

have to watch out for a second

wave of infections in China.”

Wuhan is by far the worst-

hit part of the country, ac-

counting for 50,008 confirmed

coronavirus cases—61% of

China’s total—and 2,571 deaths,

or 77% of the national toll, ac-

cording to official figures as of

Monday.

The real infection numbers

for Wuhan could be more than

double that, according to two

recent studies that estimated

that the cumulative total for

the city was already higher

than 125,000 in February.

One study, by University of

Hong Kong researchers, noted

that China changed its criteria

for diagnosis six times, includ-

ing on Feb. 4, when it widened

the testing pool considerably,

leading to a surge in confirmed

cases.

If testing capabilities were

available throughout the out-

break, and the Feb. 4 criteria

had been applied throughout

China’s crisis, 232,000 cases

could have been detected in

China by Feb. 20, with 127,

cases in Wuhan alone, the re-

searchers estimated.

Many Wuhan residents say

they are skeptical in part be-

cause local authorities tried to

cover up the scale of the prob-

lem early on. Police repri-

manded several people who

tried to issue warnings via so-

cial media and officials warned

doctors not to speak publicly

about the disease.

Restrictions on people re-

trieving deceased relatives’

ashes from funeral homes

ahead of last Saturday’s Tomb

Sweeping festival, a day when

many Chinese visit ancestors’

graves, also aroused suspicions.

Officials banned people from

observing Tomb Sweeping ritu-

als until April 30, saying it was

to avoid cemetery overcrowd-

ing.

Cemeteries and crematori-

ums have been heavily manned

with police and other officials,

with makeshift tents and desks

erected outside to process

grieving relatives.

Chinese authorities lifted the

mass quarantine of Hubei prov-

ince except for Wuhan, its capi-

tal, on March 25. They said

they would relax the city’s lock-

down from April 8 and start

encouraging resumption of

business operations.

In recent days, city authori-

ties clarified that while people

who are healthy will be able to

leave and enter Wuhan after

Wednesday, most residential

restrictions will remain in

place.

“Our city’s epidemic preven-

tion and control situation is

still grim,” read a notice from

the city government published

late Friday. Among the threats

it cited were asymptomatic

cases and people who retested

as positive after recovering.

In Wuhan’s Meihuachi neigh-

borhood, one local official said

four to five asymptomatic cases

had been found over the week-

end across three residential

complexes nearby, all of which

were back under lockdown as a

result.

He said some of those cases

had been discovered because

they had been tested as a re-

quirement for going back to

work or leaving the city.

The role of asymptomatic

cases has come into focus re-

cently in the U.S. and Europe,

where limited testing capabili-

ties make it hard to screen

those who don’t look or feel ill.

U.S. public-health officials have

advised against testing people

who don’t show symptoms. Yet

knowing who has the virus

could allow for more targeted

containment strategies.

To more accurately assess

the number of asymptomatic

cases in China, authorities

would either need to do tests—

ideally blood tests to screen for

antibodies—on the whole popu-

lation, which would be prohibi-

tively expensive, or on large,

carefully chosen samples. China

has said it had started antibody

sampling to better understand

infection rates.

Lin Xihong, a professor at

15,

0

5,

10,

FM A

3-day rolling

average

March 18

Dailynewcaseshitzero

Feb. 12

China changes

how it counts cases

1

10

100

1,

100 20 30 40 50 60 70

MainlandChina

Iran

Italy

Spain

Germany

U.S. France

U.K.

NUMBER OF DAYS

SINCE 10 DAILY DEATHS FIRST RECORDED

RecoveryMode

More than three months after the

coronavirus outbreak began, China is slowly

getting back to normal.

While China had fewer reported deaths than

other hard-hit countries, some experts caution

it could face a second wave of infections.

DailynewcasesinWuhan Dailynewdeaths,3-dayrollingaverage*

*Logarithmic scale to emphasize the rate of change

Sources: China’s National Health Commission (cases in Wuhan); WSJ calculation based on data from Johns Hopkins CSSE (deaths)

‘We have to watch

out for a second

wave of infections in

China.’

combined with the reports of
new asymptomatic cases, are
triggering fears of a potential
second wave of infections that
could undermine Beijing’s claim
to have tamed the virus.
The accuracy of China’s
data—and how the virus be-
haves in Wuhan after April
8—is critical for many other
countries looking to China for
how to manage their crises, in-
cluding what happens when
lockdowns are lifted in hard-hit
areas.
Some researchers using sta-
tistical models estimate the
number of people who caught
the virus in Wuhan may be
more than double the official
tally. Other experts and resi-
dents believe the official death
toll excludes those who died at
home or couldn’t be tested
early on.
China’s national and Wuhan
city information offices and
health commissions didn’t re-
spond to requests for comment.
Chinese officials have denied
underreporting infections and
deaths, and said they’re fo-
cused on imported cases from
abroad, as well as asymptom-
atic ones.
Current and former U.S. offi-
cials say government spy agen-
cies believe China’s official fig-
ures on the pandemic are
incomplete at best, and are
possibly misleading, although
it’s unclear if that’s due to
China’s top leadership or local
officials trying to hide bad
news from Beijing.
Local and regional officials
shy from reporting bad news
up the chain to Beijing, they
said. Many epidemiologists be-
lieve China has undercounted
infection and death numbers,
mainly because it didn’t test
widely in the early stages, and
diagnosed many early casual-
ties as pneumonia or other con-
ditions.
Last month, China’s Premier
Li Keqiang warned local offi-
cials to be truthful in case re-
porting. Lu Shaye, China’s am-
bassador to France, said in a
television interview that was
later shared on the foreign
ministry’s website that the
number of deaths in Wuhan
from causes other than corona-
virus in the two months after
the lockdown was roughly the
same as in an average January
and February, at about 10,000.

Case numbers

Privately, some epidemiolo-
gists have expressed worries
that officials across China may
have been less aggressive about
testing in recent weeks to sus-
tain the impression that China
had managed to get infection
numbers down.
Wang Wenjun, a 33-year-old
homemaker and mother of two,
says her uncle—who died in a
quarantine center on Jan. 31 af-
ter suffering from coronavirus
symptoms—was one of the un-
counted. “He didn’t even do the
test: How could he be included
in the data?” she asked.
She said that he and her fa-
ther, both retired taxi drivers,
developed fevers soon after
Wuhan’s lockdown began on
Jan. 23. Local officials finally
took the two on Jan. 30 to a
makeshift quarantine center in
a hotel, where they weren’t
tested or seen by any doctors,
she said. Her father woke the
next morning to find her uncle
dead in his bed, according to
Ms. Wang.
Local officials, who never

ContinuedfromPageOne

Fea r

Lingers

In Wuhan

HONG KONG—China’s Com-
munist Party said it is investi-
gating alleged wrongdoing by
an influential businessman
who has been an outspoken
critic of President Xi Jinping,
signaling harsh punishment for
the author of a scathing essay
decrying the Chinese leader’s
handling of the pandemic.
The probe against Ren Zhiq-
iang, a real-estate mogul and a
well-connected Communist
Party member, comes as Beijing
trumpets its success in contain-
ing the coronavirus and seeks
to quell public anger around
initial government missteps.
In a statement Tuesday, a
Beijing district branch of the
Communist Party’s disciplin-

ary agency said Mr. Ren is be-

ing investigated by party and

government inspectors for al-

legedly committing serious vi-

olations of party discipline

and the law. Chinese officials

often have used this vague

phrasing when referring to

corruption cases. The state-

ment didn’t detail the allega-

tions against Mr. Ren.

The announcement marked

the first official acknowledg-

ment of Mr. Ren’s case since

he disappeared in mid-March,

soon after Mr. Xi visited the

central city of Wuhan, where

the pandemic first erupted, in

a trip widely seen by ordinary

Chinese as a declaration of ini-

tial victory in the country’s

fight against the coronavirus.

Mr. Ren, a 69-year-old for-

mer chairman of a state-

owned property company,

couldn’t be reached to com-

ment. His mobile phone has

been switched off, and friends

said they started realizing that

Mr. Ren couldn’t be contacted

starting around March 12.

Friends and China political

observers believe the probe

against Mr. Ren was prompted

by a critical essay friends say he

wrote that appeared to call Mr.

Xi a “clown,” while attacking

the leader’s domineering style

and intolerance for dissent.

“A direct personal criticism

of the top leader in the midst

of a crisis violates one of the

Communist Party’s strongest

taboos,” said Joseph Torigian,

a fellow at the Council on For-

eign Relations, a New York-

based nonpartisan think tank.

As a party insider with sig-

nificant popularity outside the

party, Mr. Ren represented a

potential symbol of internal

dissent against Mr. Xi’s author-

ity, Mr. Torigian said. From Mr.

Xi’s perspective, “these things

need to be nipped in the bud

whether they are an immediate

threat or not.”

Mr. Ren’s essay, which be-

gan circulating on Chinese so-

cial media in early March, fo-

cused on a Communist Party

meeting on Feb. 26 where Mr.

Xi addressed some 170,000 of-

ficials across the country via

teleconference to issue in-

structions on epidemic con-

trols. While Mr. Xi wasn’t ex-

plicitly named, the prose made

clear the target of its derision.

“There stood not an em-

peror displaying his ‘new

clothes,’ but a clown who

stripped off his clothes and

still insisted on being an em-

peror,” the essay read.

Mr. Ren also referred to crit-

icism he made in 2016 against

Mr. Xi’s demands for Chinese

media to stay unswervingly

loyal to the party. “Without a

media representing the peo-

ple’s interests by publishing the

truth, what remains is the rav-

aging of people’s lives by both

the virus and major illnesses in

the system,” he wrote.

A former soldier whose fa-

ther was a vice commerce min-

ister, Mr. Ren has been called

“Cannon Ren” for his outspoken

views, which have ruffled feath-

ers in the Chinese leadership.

In 2016, the Communist

Party disciplined him for pub-

licly questioning Mr. Xi’s de-

mands for media loyalty. Inter-

net regulators closed Mr. Ren’s

account on the Twitter-like

Weibo microblogging platform.

Mr. Ren was put on proba-

tion for a year, during which he

was stripped of all party duties

and barred from voting or par-

ticipating in internal elections.

After that, he had lived un-

der strict government supervi-

sion, though he was still able

to communicate and share

meals with friends, attend

charity events, and participate

in certain meetings where he

can’t make public speeches,

said a recent statement by

Wang Ying, a retired entrepre-

neur and a friend of Mr. Ren’s.

BYCHUNHANWONG

Mogul Who Criticized Xi Now Faces Probe

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC