In recent months, local health authorities have conducted emergency infection disease response drills across China.
On Aug. 15, Dingxi, Gansu Province; a district in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province; and Lingchuan County, Shanxi Province carried out emergency drills for the outbreak of “pneumonia of unknown cause,” according to an official notice.
A staff member of the Gansu provincial government’s health hotline told the media on Aug. 15 that the national-level authorities had ordered officials in 10 provinces to conduct emergent infectious disease drills by the end of August.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first used the term “pneumonia of unknown cause” in 2003 to describe the SARS outbreak in China before it was officially named; it was also used when COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in late 2019.
Drills have been conducted since June in more than a dozen provinces and regions, including the nation’s capital, Beijing, according to notices issued by local health departments and Chinese media reports. This is the first official annual infectious disease emergency drill since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notices across China state that the responses are based on the “Notice from the National Disease Prevention and Control Bureau on Preparing for Emergency Drills for Infectious Diseases in 2024” issued in April, following the ”2024 National Infectious Disease Emergency Response Conference” held in Chengdu, Sichuan, on April 17.
COVID-19 Cases Surge
In its latest update, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Aug. 8 that the number of COVID-19 cases in China spiked to 18.7 percent in the last week of July from 8.9 percent in the first week of July. The main prevalent strains were JN.1 series variants and XDV series variants.Guangdong Province’s Health Commission reported that there were 18,384 COVID-19 infection cases in the province in July, an increase of more than 10,000 cases from June’s 8,246 cases.
The international community has suspected the CCP of downplaying and covering up the true scale of COVID-19 infections and deaths in China since late 2019, when it first broke out in Wuhan, Hubei Province, because of its lack of transparency.
Dr. Jonathan Liu, a professor at the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Canada and director of Kangmei Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 15 that the drills across China in recent months are aimed at another COVID-19 outbreak.
“The CCP already declared victory over COVID-19, so if there is another wave of infections, it must be [labeled] ‘pneumonia of unknown cause,’” he said.
Liu noted that there shouldn’t be so many cases of infections during the summer, as it doesn’t conform to the known pattern of COVID-19.
Dr. Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based China affairs observer, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 15 that the emergency response drills conducted across China show that COVID-19 is still prevalent in the country and that its severity has fluctuated over time.
“Each wave of recurrence of COVID-19 has different characteristics. Right now, it seems to mainly target young people,” he said.
Sean Lin, a microbiologist and assistant professor in the biomedical science department at Feitian College, said that in the context of the sluggish economy and high unemployment rate, “this kind of drill may be a special political signal“ and that ”the authorities are trying to achieve more control over society on the grounds of health.”
