CCP Conceals Mysterious Pneumonia Outbreak in Children
The sense of helplessness that has gripped the Chinese people on and off since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago is again returning as the country grapples with an unidentified pneumonia outbreak that is sickening children and overwhelming hospitals.
Sick children in strollers, or carried by their parents, have been filling hospital waiting rooms, hallways, and spilling outside the main gates. They wait for hours hoping for their number to be called on the loudspeaker before the day is over.
Waiting up to 12 hours is not uncommon—if one can get in line at all. After staying past midnight in a hospital hallway teeming with people, a Beijing resident shared a photo while holding a ticket number in the 1800s—the placement in the day’s queue—reminding would-be visitors to bring a stool with them, because “there’s nowhere to sit if you need to get an IV drip.”
From north to south, the spike in children’s respiratory hospitalizations is shutting classrooms and pushing health authorities to issue a flurry of announcements telling teachers and students who feel unwell to stay home.
Mr. Chen from Beijing told The Epoch Times that his daughter said, “Everyone in the class is coughing—you can’t even hear what the teacher is saying.”
Just like three years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears dismissive of the disease’s risk, telling a concerned World Health Organization that there are no “unusual or new pathogens” or clinical symptoms.
The regime partially attributed the uptick to a mid-October upgrade in a respiratory surveillance mechanism, and asserted that the existing Chinese hospital capacities have been sufficient to handle the situation. Patients wait to see the doctors at a fever clinic of Dongguan People’s Hospital in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China, on Dec. 20, 2022. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
Beijing’s explanation, which the international health agency as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have quoted verbatim, has convinced few in China or abroad.
The acting director of WHO’s department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Nov. 29 press briefing that the organization is “following up with the situation in China” and assessing “the health care capacities around the world” in dealing with these types of new infections.
Sean Lin, microbiologist and former lab director at the viral diseases branch of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, expressed frustration over the WHO’s reliance on China’s regime for information.
“How can you trust the Chinese government data?” he told The Epoch Times.
After whistleblower doctors sounded the alarm on the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan during the final days of 2019, it took nearly three weeks before the Chinese regime acknowledged that the virus can spread from human to human. During that time, and afterward, authorities reprimanded the medics who spoke out, arrested citizen journalists, and muzzled reporters, while orchestrating an internet cleanup on any mention of the outbreak deemed undesirable to its image.
Many lawmakers in Washington, especially Republicans, see the same thing happening in China now.
“We have no ability to trust the Chinese,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), told The Epoch Times’ sister outlet NTD on Nov. 30, a day after signing a letter demanding that the CDC investigate the outbreak in China.
A Fast Spreading Pathogen: Around this time last year the regime abruptly abandoned its draconian zero-COVID restrictions after forcing the Chinese population to live for years in an on-again, off-again lockdown with food and other basic needs hanging in the balance.
In the first 20 days of December 2022, an estimated hundreds of millions contracted the virus and the influx of infections and deaths overloaded hospitals and crematoriums.
During the current pneumonia outbreak, children have been particularly hard hit. Major Chinese pediatric hospitals across China have reported receiving up to 10,000 patients each day in recent weeks.
“China’s the number one purveyor of lies and deceit. Luckily, they’ve clearly been unable to cover this up thus far,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), told NTD.
Five Republican senators on Dec. 1 wrote to President Joe Biden urging him to restrict travel between the United States and China to buy time to study the dangers of the illness.
“A ban on travel now could save our country from death, lockdowns, mandates, and further outbreaks later,” the senators wrote.
The statistics released by the Beijing Municipal Health Commission are so far the only data point to gauge the severity of the current outbreak.
It pinpointed 16 infection sources, among them flu and mycoplasma—a bacteria that can cause respiratory infections and pneumonia—echoing the official rhetoric that sources other than COVID-19 are to blame for the spiraling patient numbers.
