China’s ability to rally its Covid troops showcased in rush to help Shanghai
- 2,000 soldiers join medical teams from across the country as reinforcements are called in to contain the financial hub’s outbreak
- It reflects a political and social system whose advantages state media say Western democracies cannot match in fighting the virus
The city government is using all of its human power, including civil servants, state-owned company employees and Communist Party members to facilitate the rapid testing – not to mention the army, whose transport planes have delivered personnel along with testing and safety equipment.
Wu Qianyu, a senior Shanghai health commission official, said on Sunday that medical teams had been sent from around the country to help. According to state media, they came from as far away as Beijing and Tianjin, in the north, and Hainan, in the south.
Some of the estimated 10,000 extra personnel – medical and testing staff, and soldiers – were to be stationed in makeshift hospitals to treat patients, while others would help with mass testing and disinfection.
Tens of thousands of beds have been prepared to accommodate infected residents and their close contacts, at public hospitals, temporary hospitals built recently to treat mild and asymptomatic infections, and quarantine sites in neighbouring cities such as Hangzhou, sources told the South China Morning Post.