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Three leading Chinese health experts have criticized government surveillance on mobile phones to identify those close to Covid-19 cases, often in defiance of a global epidemic.
The trio are being led by Chen Fujun at Huaxi Hospital No. 4 southwest of Chengdu, which imposes travel restrictions and standardized tests on mobile phone users who have strayed within the 800m on probation cases for more than 10 minutes.
In a letter dated November 8 and viewed by the Financial Times, Chen and doctors Li Jiayuan and Wang Chuan wrote that the program could lead to “excessive use of medical equipment, increasing public fears and disrupting people’s well-being and jobs”.
“We need to focus on the stability of these mechanisms,” added doctors, who said the epidemic could be here.
Since the epidemic in China, people to challenge the government’s response has been severely restricted due to research and fear of retaliation. Some journalists have been jailed for reporting Beijing’s handling of the virus while other critics have been affected by online threats from patriots.
Doctors’ criticisms reflect the difficulties the Chinese government is facing as it struggles “.zero Covid”Preventive measures even over and over again plagues of the most contagious species of Delta.
Yanzhong Huang, a health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said Chengdu’s actions were “excessive” and reflected a critical level of government scrutiny.
The government, he added, appears to believe that only two states of the country were “zero or. . . [a] the worst case scenario in which all health care is disrupted and human well-being disrupted ”.
Chengdu’s recent operation came in the wake of a global epidemic that began in late October that affected more than 1,000 people in several cities.
Despite having only 33 cases since the end of last month, Chengdu authorities have begun forcing residents of the area, whose phones appear to be on the verge of serious crime, to stay in isolation for three days and test two viruses before returning to normal. life.
Three days after the ordinance was imposed, Chengdu police identified 82,000 people believed to be close to only nine people with Covid disease.
Some states have enacted more stringent laws. Changsha, the capital of central Hunan province, cites only two cases from mid-July. But in October it said people whose cell phones are placed near fixed charges should be tested for three viruses for seven days before moving freely.
Some countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, have used cell phones to try to control the epidemic. But none of them mentioned the closest connection as the Chinese cities did.
Singapore, one of the world’s largest participating countries in terms of tracking down the number of people living with HIV, sees the closest people if they come within 2m of serious cases.
Three Chengdu doctors say the city’s track record shows that many people are close to them even though they have a low chance of contracting the virus.
“There should be a limit to the size of [close contact] monitoring, “doctors said, adding that local authorities should refrain from” misusing big data “to deal with the epidemic.
Doctors did not respond to a request for comment. Local authorities are keeping such a hedge about it as long as China adheres to its zero-Covid standards.
“We want to disrupt close to a thousand people rather than miss a single case,” said the Chengdu health official, who asked not to be identified. “This is in the public interest.”
But people known to the Chengdu faction also doubt that it works.
Lucy Yang, a financial adviser to Shanghai, was shocked to receive a text message from the Chengdu Center for Disease Control and Prevention on November 7 calling her close to the Covid case. Although she had been in Chengdu for a short time two weeks earlier, she was allowed to travel and was tested twice within 72 hours.
“I had a one-day trip to Chengdu on October 22 and the first confirmed case in the city for a recent resurrection did not reach October 28,” Yang said. “The next step has the right problem.”
Additional reports of Tom Mitchell in Singapore
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