Opinion | China coronavirus crisis: Beijing is marshalling its formidable bureaucracy – but at what cost?

The Chinese government is being put to the test in yet another public health crisis. But unlike with Ebola, swine flu, avian flu or anything else in the past decade, this looming epidemic is of a much larger scale and severity, and potentially more catastrophic. In China alone, the number of infections for this novel coronavirus has already surpassed that of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003.

Part of the nerve-racking threat is that this virus, unlike Sars, is infectious even during its incubation period, before symptoms present, which means infected people have been travelling and spreading the disease without knowing they have it. The mayor of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, recently admitted that five million residents, equivalent to Singapore’s entire population, had left the city before the lockdown began on January 23.

Wuhan’s location in the heart of China, with its extensive and highly developed transport network, meant that the virus quickly spread out, right before the world’s busiest travel season: the Spring Festival holidays. For the coronavirus, both location and timing were perfect.

Criticism of the Chinese government has mounted. Pessimists see virtually no improvement in the state’s reaction to a public health crisis; with its poor preparedness, sluggish response and low transparency, the sparks were neglected until a fire broke out. It would seem that Wuhan government officials and their superiors had committed all the “do nots” at every critical juncture.

When interviewed by China Central Television, Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang offered a well-known explanation for his slow reaction: information disclosure of this kind required authorisation from the central government, under the law on prevention and control of infectious diseases, and many pre-emptive measures could not be introduced until the State Council specifically asked the local government to take charge.