The Wall Street Journal - 11.03.2020

A8| Wednesday, March 11, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**

A worker measured a woman’s body temperature during a door-to-door search in Wuhan in February, part of a government campaign that ignored many globalnorms.

CHINA DAILY/REUTERS

in China, the WHO said in a

media briefing in late February.

With Covid-19 cases multi-

plying in other countries, the

WHO said in a report published

last week that China’s strategy

“provides vital lessons for the

global response.”

Giovanni Rezza, the chief ep-

idemiologist at Italy’s National

Health Institute, was doubtful

at first that China’s measures

could be implemented in Eu-

rope. He changed his mind over

the weekend as the number of

Italian cases climbed.

“There’s no question they

were able to combat the epi-

demic efficiently,” he said Tues-

day of China. “We weren’t able

to contain our initial cluster.

Our restrictions were softer

than China’s. But seeing how

serious is the situation in the

north, we couldn’t help but be

scared for the rest of Italy.”

South Korea, where the virus

has infected more than 7,

residents, has canceled public

activities and raised its virus

alert to red, the highest of four

levels, clearing the way for au-

thorities to cancel public activi-

ties and restrict domestic

travel. The government also is

conducting more aggressive

surveillance on potential carri-

ers of the virus.

The experience of Vivy Shen,

a 27-year-old operations assis-

tant at a video-streaming com-

pany in the eastern Chinese

city of Hangzhou, shows how

Chinese authorities moved to

contain the virus.

Ms. Shen spent two weeks in

Wuhan on a work trip in the

early stages of the outbreak,

when officials were playing

down the danger. She returned

to Hangzhou the same day offi-

cials in Beijing dispatched med-

ical researchers to Wuhan.

A few days later, the team

revealed that the virus was

passing from person to person.

Officials announced the lock-

down of Wuhan on Jan. 23, a

day after Ms. Shen had traveled

back to her hometown, the

nearby coastal city of Wenzhou,

to spend the Lunar New Year

holiday with her family.

For a week, Ms. Shen was in-

undated with phone calls from

police, community officials,

health workers and others ask-

ing about her recent travel his-

tory and whether she had a fe-

ver. One call came from

officials in a city she had

passed through on her way to

Wenzhou.

“They told me I had likely

passed the place and my tele-

vices that call up a user’s travel

history over the prior 14 days—

the average incubation period

of the virus—so that employers

and managers of commercial

properties can ascertain the ex-

posure of returning workers.

The government also has

worked with e-commerce behe-

moth Alibaba Group Holding

Ltd. and social-media giant

Tencent Holdings Ltd., the

country’s two largest tech com-

panies, to develop smartphone

apps that assign health ratings

to individuals. The system Ali-

baba helped develop is color

coded: Symptomless users with

clean travel histories are given

green badges that allow them

to pass through city check-

points with the scan of a QR

code, while higher risk users

are assigned yellow or red

badges that limit their move-

ments. On Tuesday, Hubei an-

nounced plans to implement a

similar system as it begins to

lift travel restrictions.

Some of those trapped in

Wuhan have gone on social me-

dia to decry dire conditions in

hospitals and a climate of un-

certainty. Around the country,

people prevented from return-

ing to work live in fear of los-

ing their jobs.

Still, the Chinese people in-

terviewed by the Journal said

they accepted the controls as a

necessary sacrifice at a time of

crisis. Despite feeling uncom-

fortable at having her data

shared with officials, Ms. Shen

said she couldn’t complain.

“Moments like this, it’s not the

time to be difficult about such

things,” she said.

Some Asian governments

have expanded surveillance ef-

forts. South Korea is using

credit-card transactions to track

patients’ travel routes, and it

started using a GPS-based app

to monitor people under self-

quarantine. Singapore’s health

authorities have tapped ride-

sharing data and surveillance

cameras to do the same. In Tai-

wan, health inspectors track

mobile-phone signals to make

sure people don’t ignore home-

isolation orders.

Officials in China and else-

where have promised that new

surveillance measures put in

place to fight Covid-19 are tem-

porary. Academics and privacy

advocates, however, warn that

once mass data collection has

begun, governments have few

incentives to roll it back.

—Yang Jie, Lekai Liu and

Margherita Stancati

contributed to this article.

THE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC

com provider had given them

my data,” she said.

Along with state-run rail op-

erators and airlines, China’s big

three telecom providers—China

Mobile, China Telecom and

China Unicom—were the gov-

ernment’s first line of defense

against the spread of the virus.

Chinese rules requiring a gov-

ernment-issued ID to purchase

rail and plane tickets, and to

buy SIM cards for phones,

made it relatively easy for au-

thorities to track and contact

anyone who had traveled

through regions hard hit by the

outbreak.

The mobile carriers shared

location data on users who had

passed through Hubei with the

Ministry of Industry and Infor-

mation Technology, which in

turn passed it on to the Na-

tional Health Commission and

other agencies involved in the

virus response.

The data enabled virus re-

sponse teams to reconstruct

the movements of potential vi-

rus carriers and others who

may have come into contact

with them, a process known as

contact tracing, with unusual

precision. Some cities used this

information to publish mes-

sages on social media detailing

the movements of likely carri-

ers to warn populations that

might have been exposed.

Soon, though, it became

clear that the contagion was

outpacing the data. As the

number of new infections

climbed, party leaders turned

to older methods of control.

They ordered local officials to

seal off more cities and towns,

and activated residential com-

mittees—remnants of the Mao

Zedong era—to conduct human

surveillance on residents of

neighborhoods and apartment

complexes.

Home to a large community

of itinerant merchants and trad-

ers, Wenzhou was one of the

worst hit in the early stages of

the outbreak. Officials ordered

buses to stop running and

closed hotels and restaurants.

The residential committee

overseeing her parents’ apart-

ment ordered Ms. Shen to self-

quarantine indoors for 14 days.

Her mother was allowed to

leave the complex to buy gro-

ceries every other day, applying

for an exit permit each time.

Authorities mandated the

imposition of “closed-style

management” at apartment

complexes, blocking off side en-

trances so that residents can

come and go only at a single

point manned by security

guards. The system mirrors

those used to control Muslim

minorities in the far western

region of Xinjiang, where au-

thorities have instituted a mix

of digital and human surveil-

lance to suffocate a separatist

movement they say is driven by

extremism.

Some local governments in

Hubei, at the epicenter of the

epidemic, have required resi-

dents who don’t comply with

health guidelines to undergo

compulsory education.

In the Hubei city of Huang-

gang, people caught in public

without a mask or wandering

outside without authorization

have to pay a 1,000 yuan ($140)

fine, and a fee of 40 yuan a day

for two weeks of “forced study”

classes, which are conducted in

a sports stadium with students

seated far apart, Huanggang

residents said in interviews.

Round up

As infections rose in Huang-

gang in early February, the

Communist Party dispatched a

team there with instructions to

“round up everyone who needs

rounding up,” according to a

state broadcaster, a phrase the

party also has used to describe

its campaign against Muslims

in Xinjiang.

In Wuhan, some younger

residents have called the police

on older relatives for refusing

to take proper precautions

against infection, according to

26-year-old Uyen Yang, one of

the volunteers helping Hubei

officials collate health data.

“They didn’t know what else

to do and are extremely wor-

ried,” Ms. Yang said of friends

who reported family members.

“Their parents won’t listen to

them.”

As the number of new infec-

tions declines, Chinese leaders

are relaxing some of the

stricter controls in a bid to re-

start the country’s stalled econ-

omy. To guard against a resur-

gence in Covid-19 cases as

people return to work, they

have turned again to digital

surveillance.

On orders from regulators,

China Mobile and other tele-

com giants have developed ser-

RUSSIA

144.

MILLION

144.

MILLION

327.2 RUSSIA

MILLION

U.S.

59 MILLION

Hubei province

507.5 MILLION

Peopleinfullorpartial

lockdowninChina

Locked Down

Chinasealedoffvariousregionsasthe virusspread

Chinese residents under lockdown, compared with total population numbers elsewhere

Sources: World Bank (population figures, 2018); government figures (China and Hubei)

Italy

60.5 MILLION

513.

MILLION

EU

Italy

quarantines

entirecountry

China, at times, has

confined more than

500 million mostly

healthy people.

Maoist past.
Authorities sealed off Wu-
han, a city of 11 million, on Jan.

23. At least a dozen more lock-
    downs followed. The party dis-
    patched armies of low-level en-
    forcers to guard the gates of
    residential compounds and re-
    strict the movements of people
    living inside.
    The government tapped data
    from state-run mobile carriers
    to track down individuals who
    slipped lockdowns, recruited
    volunteers to go door-to-door
    in apartment buildings to re-
    cord body temperatures, and
    enlisted the help of tech com-
    panies to develop apps to sepa-
    rate healthy people from those
    at high-risk.
    China’s government had, at
    various points in January and
    February, confined more than
    500 million mostly healthy peo-
    ple—more than the combined
    populations of the U.S. and
    Mexico—to their homes, ac-
    cording to a conservative Wall
    Street Journal estimate based
    on state media reports. At its
    height, the quarantine encom-
    passed at least 20 provinces
    and regions.
    World Health Organization
    guidelines for epidemics recom-
    mend isolation only for individ-
    uals who show symptoms, and
    two-week quarantines for peo-
    ple exposed to a Covid-19 pa-
    tient. Public-health experts in
    the West say that is because
    broad, indiscriminate quaran-
    tines are hard to enforce, en-
    courage people to lie about
    their health and can disrupt ac-
    cess to critical supplies.
    Some scientists say it is too
    early to know for certain
    whether the Communist Party’s
    reaction to the threat is the
    right approach. Nevertheless,
    signs that the contagion is
    dwindling outside the epicenter
    have caused epidemiologists
    and other public-health experts
    to rethink their assumptions
    about what is possible in bat-
    tling epidemics.
    Arthur Reingold, an infec-
    tious-disease expert at the Uni-
    versity of California, Berkeley’s
    School of Public Health who was
    initially skeptical of China’s ap-
    proach, said, “China has proven
    that maybe if you are draconian
    enough, if you put enough re-
    sources into it, you can actually
    retard transmissions.”

Big obstacles

Other nations would likely
face big obstacles employing
the same tactics. Unlike in
many other countries, China’s
government has a tolerance for
economic pain and willingness
to run roughshod over individ-
ual rights.
“Nothing like this has been
tried before in modern history,”
said Tom Inglesby, director of
the Center for Health Security
at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health. “Most countries
couldn’t even logistically at-
tempt it.”
The rapid imposition of
quarantines, digital surveillance
of potential virus carriers and
mass testing have made it pos-
sible for China’s government to
trap most of the outbreak in
Wuhan and its surrounding
province of Hubei.
On March 9, 17 new cases of
Covid-19 were diagnosed in Hu-
bei, with two new cases in the
rest of the country. Hubei has
accounted for 96% of the 3,
deaths from the virus in the
country so far. The fatality rate
for the disease stood at be-
tween 2% and 4% in Wuhan,
where medical resources were
stretched, and 0.7% elsewhere

ContinuedfromPageOne

China

Takes Hard

Line

pic Committee’s executive

board, which includes lumi-

naries from politics and busi-

ness as well as former ath-

letes.

While the board’s role

doesn’t involve day-to-day

management of the staff, Mr.

Takahashi speculated that, in

advance of a meeting later in

March, junior staff are exam-

ining how a rescheduling

might conflict with other

sporting events.

Mr. Takahashi, a former se-

nior managing director at

Japanese advertising giant

Dentsu Inc., said the financial

damage from canceling the

Games or holding them with-

out spectators would be too

great. A delay shorter than a

year, meanwhile, would be dif-

ficult because the Games

would then likely be held at

the same time as other major

professional sports, such as

baseball and football in the

U.S., and soccer in Europe, he

said.

Comcast Corp.’s NBCUni-

versal has paid $1.1 billion for

rights to broadcast the Tokyo

Games in the U.S. at a time of

year that doesn’t conflict with

other major sports events.

Around 73% of the IOC’s reve-

nue comes from selling broad-

casting rights, according to its

latest financial statement.

“I don’t think the Games

could be canceled; it’d be a

delay. The International Olym-

pic Committee would be in

trouble if there’s a cancella-

tion. American TV rights

alone provide them with a

huge amount,” Mr. Takahashi

said, adding that a two-year

delay would be easiest to ar-

range because sports sched-

ules for next year are already

mostly decided.

Until the 1990s, the Winter

and Summer Olympics were

held in the same year. They

were moved to alternate every

two years to spread out the

organizational load and better

promote the Winter Games.

As the coronavirus spreads

around the world, odds of-

fered by some European book-

makers show they think the

Games are more likely not to

go ahead this summer than

proceed. Senior officials in

Japan and at the IOC say no

thought is being given to a

possible cancellation or post-

ponement.

“Not a chance,” Tokyo 2020

Organizing Committee Presi-

dent Yoshiro Mori said on Fri-

day when asked whether the

Games could be pushed back

to ensure the coronavirus

threat has passed. Japan’s

Olympics minister, Seiko

Hashimoto, has also back-

tracked after earlier suggest-

ing a delay could be possible.

IOC President Thomas Bach

last week called on athletes to

train to compete as scheduled

in Tokyo.

A cancellation of the Olym-

pics would also deal a finan-

cial blow to Japan. Around $

billion in ticket sales would be

forfeited, and according to an

estimate by SMBC Nikko Se-

curities Inc. total lost reve-

nue, including expected

spending by spectators, could

reach around $75 bil-

lion. Dentsu, Mr. Takahashi’s

former employer, is the mar-

keting agency for the Tokyo

Olympics.

TOKYO—If the Olympics
can’t go ahead this summer in
Tokyo because of the corona-
virus epidemic, the most real-
istic option would be to delay
the event by one or two years,
a member of the executive
board for the Japanese orga-
nizing committee said.
The board hasn’t met since
December, before the new cor-
onavirus epidemic arose, and
hasn’t discussed the impact of
the virus on the Games, said
Haruyuki Takahashi in an in-
terview with The Wall Street
Journal. He is one of about 25
members of the Tokyo Olym-

BYALASTAIRGALE

Olympic Official Floats Possible Delay of 1 to 2 Years