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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Coronavirus: Beijing expert who beat Wuhan outbreak now on Hong Kong front line against Covid-19

  • Wang Hesheng was sent to Wuhan in early 2020 to rescue a public health system on the brink of collapse with the newly discovered coronavirus disease
  • Two years on, he is in Shenzhen, tasked with helping to do the same for Hong Kong where cases and misery are soaring

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Wang Hesheng addresses a virtual meeting between mainland Chinese work teams and Hong Kong’s anti-epidemic task force, in Shenzhen on February 18. Photo: Xinhua
William Zheng
Two years after he was sent to central Hubei province to lead the battle against one of the worst public health crises in the history of modern China, the country’s top official for infectious disease control has headed south to Shenzhen – to help tame the raging spread of Covid-19 in Hong Kong next door.
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Wang Hesheng, director of China’s newly established National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, took his place at the pandemic control outpost in Shenzhen on Wednesday, attending a high-level coordination group meeting presided over by the central government’s top official for Hong Kong – Xia Baolong.
The same day, Chinese President Xi Jinping instructed the Hong Kong government to shoulder the “main responsibility” of tackling its exponentially growing coronavirus outbreak and to “mobilise all forces and resources” to protect lives and ensure stability.

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Hong Kong hospitals set up outdoor wards as city buckles under rising coronavirus infections

Hong Kong hospitals set up outdoor wards as city buckles under rising coronavirus infections
The instructions from Xi were regarded as both a strong reminder to Hong Kong officials not to slack off in tackling the city’s worst public health crisis since Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and a galvanising rallying call for the mainland officialdom to fix the major crack in China’s “zero-Covid” great wall.

While Xia, head of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, has overall charge of the top-level coordination group, Wang – also a vice-minister at the National Health Commission (NHC) – has been called in to repeat what he achieved two years ago in Wuhan, the Hubei capital where the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus was discovered in late 2019.

That is, find ways to rescue a public health system on the brink of collapse, as Hong Kong’s hospitals and health workers are brought to their knees by thousands of patients seeking admission each day, while tens of thousands of others infected desperately wait at home for help.

In February 2020, Wang was parachuted from his vice-ministerial post to the front line in Wuhan, where he doubled up as the Hubei provincial health chief and member of the Communist Party’s local standing committee. His appointment was part of Beijing’s major reshuffle of Hubei’s top leadership after they had failed to contain the spread of the virus in the month following the initial outbreak.

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