The authorities in China have fired the health chief of a city near the core of the Wuhan virus outbreak.
This came following public anger after he was unable to answer simple questions on state television.
Tang Zhihong used to head the health department in Huanggang city, which has a whopping 500 confirmed cases and 12 deaths.
She appeared on television on Thursday and was asked various questions by a central government inspection team and a reporter on issues such as how many patients a hospital can treat.
However, she was unable to answer these questions and simply said, “I don’t know, I’m unclear” when asked another question on how many people had fallen sick.
She even had the audacity to say, “I only know how many beds there are. Don’t ask me how many people are being treated.”
Fired
In a matter of gours, the city’s health department released a short and terse statement announcing that Tang had been removed. However, it gave no other details.
The original post of Tang speaking and being unable to answer the questions understandably drew massive public anger and garnered more than half a million comments on the Weibo account of state television’s news channel within mere hours.
The Chinese government has said that they will investigate and punish officials who are involved in the fight against the Wuhan virus that are deemed to be “slacking off” on their jobs.
The reaction is understandable given that the situation in Huanggang is very serious and only comes second to Wuhan in terms of confirmed cases and death toll.
Huanggang has also been shut down from the outside world by the government in an effort to try to stop the Wuhan virus from spreading.
Thus far, there are almost 10,000 confirmed cases all over the world and over 200 deaths.
We hope that the situation will improve for the residents of Huanggang.
