During the Covid-19 epidemic, the Chinese authorities have developed effective quarantine mechanisms. Beijing appears to believe that rapid localised lockdowns are the most effective one. The Chengdu city sanitary epidemiological service decided today to impose a stringent quarantine in a matter of hours. Only one member of the family may leave the house to get groceries.
However, the 21 million population of the region was not informed in time. This led to chaos in the streets, markets and shops.
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and another sanitary epidemiological bodies have been given enormous powers which allow them to act often without reference to other public authorities. In some cases, it helps to act quickly and effectively, but it often leads to the simplest methods of solving the problem being chosen.
