Late last month, for instance, after The New England Journal of Medicine published a research paper about early cases of the virus, Chinese web users pounced on the fact that several of the authors worked for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, saying they should have been informing the public, not furthering their research careers.
“Now I understand,” one person wrote on the social platform Weibo. “The C.D.C.’s purpose all along was to publish research papers.”
“I’m so mad that I’m speechless,” wrote another.
The researchers later said that all their information about the infections had already been made public before the paper was written.
At this point, Professor Fu said, more censorship “wouldn’t stop the public frustration.”
The rapidly rising number of infections and deaths from the new virus has put renewed pressure on the senior leadership in China. Hospitals near the center of the epidemic have been overwhelmed, and people with flulike symptoms have been turned away. Many cases have not been diagnosed because of a shortage of testing kits.
Still, the number of people in China who are recovering is rising, as well. And on Wednesday, a senior Chinese health expert attributed the large rise in the number of confirmed cases to the fact that hospitals had been able to diagnose the virus more quickly. The number of suspected cases has dropped for the same reason, the expert, Li Xingwang, said at an official news briefing.
The new curbs on information appeared to have been set in motion earlier this week, when China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and other senior officials said at a meeting that they would “strengthen control over online media” as one of several measures to maintain social stability.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/world/asia/china-coronavirus-censorship.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
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