The Chinese regime’s state media call it “super-fast” hospital. To cope with the overwhelming number of coronavirus infected patients in Wuhan, China built the “Fire God mountain (Huo Shen Shan)” hospital within ten days and was already in use on Monday, Feb. 3.
However, the fact that the Chinese military is now in charge of the hospital’s operation has raised concerns about even less transparency regarding the outbreak.
Chinese officials say hundreds have died, and tens of thousands are infected by the 2019 novel coronavirus, which causes pneumonia-like symptoms.
U.S.–based China affairs commentator Jingyuan Tang said with the new military-controlled hospital, even such anecdotal evidence would be hard to come by.
“All of the medical staff will be from the military,” Tang said, “In that case, all the data and information in the hospital could become a military secret. The outside won’t know it. The internal staff won’t disclose it. Because whoever did so could be charged with disclosing military information and could be sent to military courts.”
“It’s like a black hole. People on the outside won’t know how many patients went in there—won’t know how many people have disappeared,” he said.
Hospital or Prison?
After photos and videos of the new hospitals were released, Chinese netizens are questioning why it looks more like a prison than a hospital—why are the windows sealed off with bars?.
“Usually only mental hospitals have bars on the window,” Sean Lin, a former microbiologist at Virus Disease Branch of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, told NTD, “Not regular hospital. (There is) no need for bars even for quarantine purposes.”
Wuhan’s Xiaotangshan
The newly built hospital is modeled after a similar hospital—Xiaotangshan was built in Beijing during the 2003 outbreak of SARS, another type of coronavirus. That facility was built in seven days.In 2003, most patients in Xiaotangshan were very contagious and more dangerous than those at other hospitals. Some western media outlets called it “a SARS virus center in China,” which may “explode” at any time.
However, the Chinese authorities said in 2003 that the recovery rate in Xiaotangshan was 99 percent and that none of the 1382 health care workers were infected, when outside of the hospital, in contrast, 20 percent of all infected are medical staff.
There was no cure for SARS at the time, nor is there now.
The Chinese army also operates Xiaotangshan Hospital.
Tang said rather how miraculous the Xiaotangshan hospital is, the incredibly high recovery rate may speak more to how tight military-run hospitals’ control is.
Zhang said some patients wouldn’t let go of the knobs of the car that sent them to the hospital.
Pressure to Control
Tang said China is also under pressure to try to prevent the international community from taking further measures to control the disease. “Like evacuating foreign citizens in China or further cutting off trade relations, which can all have a very big impact on China’s economy.”And further economic pressure could threaten the Communist Party’s legitimacy of power, he said.
“Under the totalitarian system of communist China, the authorities haven’t seemed to care that much about how many Chinese people would die,” Tang said, “... the Fire God Mountain Hospital could become a black hole, where all real numbers are sucked in.”
