Masks of the Red (Cross) Death

You remember the Edgar Allan Poe story - The Masque of the Red Death

Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and "profuse bleeding at the pores", and die within half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut.

“Abandon all hope” is how I titled a recent post on the response of Wuhan people to the virus.  The title was based on the stories I was hearing, both live and through wechat groups.

Update at January 30 - regarding the doctor who was disciplined for sharing information on the virus with his wechat group - there are now eight doctors in Wuhan who have been so disciplined.  In at least one case, the information sharing was among a wechat group of doctors involved in treating the infection.  You know the phrase, "No good deed goes unpunished."  No doubt these doctors -involved as they were in fighting this disease, without break for days - forgot the cardinal rule I mentioned below in the original post - "no one should comment without knowing all the facts."  Only the government can know all the facts. 

Breaking – Coronavirus information now under control   Tuesday, January 28  10:00 AM

 From three days ago -

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/25/c_138733715.htm

… According to the meeting, Xi has been paying very close attention to the outbreak as he held multiple meetings, heard many reports and made important instructions on the matter, demanding Party committees and governments at all levels and related departments to put people's life and health as the top priority.

From yesterday -

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-01/27/c_138737735.htm

… Li, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of a leading group of the CPC Central Committee on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, extended regards to the medical workers at the frontline on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.

Further on the six-day hospital - January 26, 2020  7:00 CST

Wuhan residents are cheered a little by reports that military doctors and nurses are being dispatched to Wuhan and neighboring cities.  My report is that all cities in Wuhan are now quarantined. Every province in China has cases of the coronavirus except for Tibet.

The Hubei governor has said now he feels hen tongxin,  great heart-pain, for the slow response of his government.  Wechat users are asking why he is not resigning immediately.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here   New Year's Eve, 2020

My wife is in the other room right now, crying. She has been reading Wuhan stories, those that get through before they are blocked.

Even now, with the panopticon state nearly complete, some individual wechat messages do get through for a while.  The stories are too long to relay here. I can only give you a sense of the despair – doctors, nurses, people of Wuhan.