THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Wuhan told to round up infected residents for new mass quarantine camps.

A senior Chinese official has ordered the authorities in the city of Wuhan to immediately round up all residents in the city who have been infected with the coronavirus and place them in isolation, quarantine, or in designated hospitals.

Sun Chunlan, a vice premier tasked with leading the central government’s response to the outbreak, said city investigators should go to each home to check the temperatures of every resident and interview infected patients’ close contacts.

“Set up a 24-hour duty system. During these wartime conditions, there must be no deserters, or they will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever,” Ms. Sun said.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

·        What do you need to know? Start here.

Updated Feb. 5, 2020

o   What is a Coronavirus, and how dangerous is it?
Read up on the respiratory virus, including its symptoms and how it is transmitted.

o   How bad could the outbreak be?
Here are the six key factors that will determine whether it can be contained.

o   Where has the virus spread?
You can track its movement with this map.

o   How is the United States being affected?
There have been at least a dozen cases. American citizens and permanent residents who fly to the United States from China are now subject to a two-week quarantine.

o   What if I’m traveling?
Several countries, including the United States, have discouraged travel to China, and several airlines have canceled flights. Many travelers have been left in limbo while looking to change or cancel bookings.

o   How do I keep myself and others safe?
Washing your hands is the most important thing you can do.

---

The city’s authorities have raced to meet these instructions by setting up makeshift mass quarantine shelters this week. But concerns are growing about whether the centers, which will house thousands of people in large spaces, will be able to provide even basic care to patients and protect against the risk of further infection.

A lockdown across the city and much of its surrounding province has exacerbated a shortage of medical supplies, testing kits and hospital beds for those sickened by the coronavirus. Many residents, unwell and desperate for care, have been forced to go from hospital to hospital on foot, only to be turned away from even being tested for the virus, let alone treated. They have had to resort to quarantines at home, risking the spread of the virus within families and neighborhoods.

The city has set up makeshift shelters in a sports stadium, an exhibition center and a building complex. Some went into operation on Thursday. The shelters are meant for housing coronavirus patients with milder symptoms, the government has said.

When Ms. Sun inspected one of the shelters, set up in Hongshan Stadium on Tuesday, she emphasized that anyone who should be admitted must be rounded up, according to a Chinese news outlet, Modern Express. “It must be cut off from the source!” she said of the virus. “You must keep a close eye! Don’t miss it!”

Photos taken inside the Hongshan sports stadium showed narrow rows of simple beds separated only by desks and chairs typically used in classrooms. Some comments on Chinese social media compared the scenes to those from the Spanish flu in 1918.

A widely shared post on Weibo, a popular social media site, said on Thursday that “conditions were very poor” at an exhibition center that had been converted into a quarantine facility. There were power failures and electric blankets could not be turned on, the user wrote, citing a relative who had been taken there, saying that people had to “shiver in their sleep.”

There was also a staff shortage, the post said, where “doctors and nurses were not seen to be taking note of symptoms and distributing medicine,” and oxygen devices were “seriously lacking.”